spins, and which we can see blown about by the faintest breeze, it is in reality

composed of from 4,000 to 6,000 separate fibres! Truly Arachne is the mother of a wonderful race of spinners.

Nature, however, never does things by halves. It is by her web, and her web alone, that a

spider can get her living; therefore she has been provided with the most perfect set of tools wherewith to accomplish this end. There are all kinds of effects produced, but the means are the same in every species.

Look into a dusty corner. You find a spider's web-not a very beautiful one, either in form or

substance, you think. Yet every one of those filmy cords is made up of several thousand threads!

How does the spider manipulate such a number of cords? Well, she first slightly presses her body against the nearest substance, and immediately the fluid issues from her spinnerets, and is fastened to the desired place. She then draws herself away, and as she goes the gum dries into the numerous threads which, all combined, go to make the silken cord with

which all webs-of whatever size, or shape, or texture, or colour-are formed.

Having thus started, she then begins to spin or weave according to the instincts of her particular species.

A dusty unfrequented spot is the chosen residence of the house-spider. Here she could live happily and prosperously enough, catching flies in abundance, were it not for her terrible enemy, the housemaid's broom, which with one dexterous sweep destroys her

EGG-BAG OF SPIDER.

home, shattering her hopes of peace and plenty.

We find spiders on the sea-shore, weaving in the crevices of the rocks the snares so deadly to the unwary insects. This species

is provided with a tiny pad on each of its feet, which enables it to traverse the slippery stones with ease and safety.

Spiders are to be seen in fields and lanes, even on the tops of trees. If we mount the highest steeple, or are floating in a boat on the open sea, we may see a little spider, seated in a soft silky chariot of its own weaving, wafted hither and thither by the breeze.

Looking into the depths of a pellucid stream

which winds its way through quiet meadows and shady woods, among an infinity of other creatures we may perhaps see what looks like a small silver globule, and wonder what it can be. On inquiry we learn that this is the house of the water-spider.

Very wonderful are the homes made by the different spiders; and worthy of careful investigation are the various ways they have of procuring, with the materials and implements nearest at hand, the necessities of life.

Spiders always live alone. The mother carries her bag of eggs about with her wherever she goes, and will be sooner torn limb from limb than part with her precious burden. If, however, she should lose a limb or two in a desperate struggle, it is not of any serious consequence, for she has the power of replacing such losses.

Unlike insects, a perfect spider comes out of the egg when it is hatched, and afterwards undergoes no change except that of its skin. This takes place several times during its life. When the skin grows too tight, it begins to split down the abdomen, and then gradually peels off, revealing a new soft one underneath. The spider then goes on growing until its gets too big for this second covering, and a similar change again takes place. The mother spider carefully tends and feeds her young until they have changed their first skins, when she turns them out into the world to get their living. Well would it be if the