656 Mlarvels of the Universe 
the leg, evidently in readiness to be pushed forward at the next moult ; an illustration of this is 
given also on the same page. 
The Garden Spider, like most of her relations near and remote, is an unsocial creature. Alone, 
she sits in the centre or at the side of her snare, where there is elbow-room for scores, but resents 
intrusion, evenof her own kind. She is solely intent upon the capture of something that may be 
eaten. Even when one of the other sex comes courting she only tolerates his presence for a time ; 
and he goes courting nowhere else. The allotted end of a male Spider is to make a meal for his wife. 
“ There is no waste in nature ! ”’ 
When the female Spider deposits her eggs, she spins a soft, fluffy cocoon, usually in the angle 
of the garden fencing ; and there you may find her 
guarding it with her body spread over it. Some 
Spiders attach their egg-cocoon to their body and 
carry it about until the eggs hatch. The young of 
the Garden Spider, when newly hatched, do show 
some tendency to sociability, for they keep together 
—though there are six or eight hundred of them in 
one batch—for a time. They spin some exceed- 
ingly fine lines that are almost invisible, and cluster 
together in a mass in the centre of this composite 
web. This is apparently a defence against ichneumon- 
flies, which seek to lay eggs in them, but are 
deterred by invisible lines that may throw their 
wings out of action. If any of the lines by which this 
nursery is suspended be touched, the minute spiders 
will scuttle off in all directions; what seemed 
like a solid ball of them appears to evaporate. 
When all is quiet a few minutes—or seconds—later, 
they gradually return and pack themselves into a 
solid ball again. They appear to leave the egg 
with a sufficient reserve of food material stored up in 
their bodies to enable them to grow considerably 
before it is necessary to begin hunting for their 
food. When that time arrives the little fellows 
separate among the herbage, and henceforth each 
THE SKIN OF THE SPIDER. one looks after himself, and himself alone. Even 
A dhe aidh aly donee hes ao, lookime ainuear himself is not a sinecure; for so 
aN study may discover hidden beauties in apparent many are the dangers that lie in the way of 
BOs aa spider development—in the form of birds, lizards 
and ichneumon-flies, for example—that very few of them attain to the full stature of their 
parents. 
Photo by] LE. J. Spitta, F.R.M.S. 
SIGUOFWS IOIR AV ILIWONG 
BY W. P. PYCRAFT. F.Z.S. 
HowEVER much of poetry we may weave into our conceptions of life, we are sooner or later 
brought face to face with the fact that all living creatures, including Man himself, must spend a 
more or less considerable amount of time in the purely animal struggle to find enough to eat. As a 
matter of fact, the importance of this business of eating can hardly be exaggerated, for the whole 
bodily structure affords eloquent testimony of the multifarious ways in which changes, now in 
