a spider's nest is in a particular spot, it is often most difficult to find any traces of the entrance. Surely, then, we may call the mygale an ingenious little contriver.

This species of spider does not obtain its food by weaving a web to ensnare prey, but when hungry goes out a-hunting.

Very cautiously she emerges from her dwelling, and very carefully she closes her trap-door before setting forth on one of these food-seeking expeditions. You will perhaps wonder how she opens it again, as it fits so closely, and is so perfectly concealed. Well, with her usual forethought, she has made five little holes in the door. She inserts her claws in these tiny apertures, and thus raises the lid when she wishes to re-enter her dwelling. These perforations go right through the door, so that, should any enemy think of entering, she fixes her claws in them on the inside, and pulls with all her might to prevent the would-be intruder from coming in.

There is, however, a certain bird with a long bill which is very fond of young spiders. This bird has a knack of inserting his objectionable beak into the tubes of the mygales, watching very closely for them to go in and out, in order to discover the whereabouts of the nests in which his particular weakness in the food line lies hidden.

The bird is sharp, but the mygale is sharper, and appears to have gone over all the intricacies of the case, and to have come to the conclusion that a long, straight,

hard bill can't twist itself round a corner.

So she has made another chamber, leading out of the principal one at an angle, and in this apartment, inaccessible to the marauding inroads of the objectionable bird, she deposits her eggs, and keeps her young, until such time as they shall grow old enough and wise enough to cater and contrive for themselves.

There are many other kinds of spiders, and many other kinds of webs and nests, all ingenious and wonderful in their material and structure; but a sufficient number have been mentioned to excite the inquiring mind to further investigation of the marvellous ways and doings of spiders.

"In contemplation of created things,
By steps we may ascend to God."

WHO has not heard of Cleopatra's Needle, and how the gigantic stone obelisk was dug out of the sand of Egypt, and what engineering skill was exercised in devising a means whereby it might be floated across the seas to our little island; and, finally, how it was set up in perhaps the only situation in London where its huge proportions could be entirely lost-namely, on the spacious sweep of the Thames Embankment ? Surely in its faded, isolated glory, it might have been placed where the testimony it bears to Egypt's longvanished greatness would be more apparent to the passer-by. However, there it stands, bearing on its

sides some of the literature (spread over hundreds of such columns) of the great nation of the Pharaohs.

Among the representations of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, and the creeping things of the earth-all used, with numerous hieroglyphics, to reveal and describe various thoughts and actions-we find the bee taking a prominent position, being used to symbolise a community governed by an absolute monarch. From these things we learn that this ancient people, whose mummies we may see any day in the British Museum, together with the great monuments which seem to gaze upon us through their great hopeless eyes, were students of Nature 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. Unless this were so, how could the Egyptians have discovered that a hive of bees is subject to one queen, and only one? This they must have known, as their symbolism and its explanation proves.

The little, pretty, busy bee, as she flies hither and thither, drinking in the honey from this blossom, gathering the pollen or flower-dust from that one, merrily buzzing through the fresh air and basking in the genial glow of the summer sun, never thinks of her own importance, and the antiquity of the history of her race, or of the amount of time and thought that clever nature-loving men of all ages have spent in investigating her ways and the reasons of them. On she goes, a bright, careless, useful little creature, always giving an example to us mortals of the

delicious fruits that may be gathered from an industrious well-spent life.

She never wastes her time. During the shining hours she improves every moment; when the night draws nigh, she takes her well-earned rest. If unable to leave the hive because of bad weather, she busies herself about her household duties—cleaning, repairing,

Queen.

Worker.

Drone.

BEES.

or making the comb, in which she keeps her honey and other stores, and where the mother-bee lays her eggs.

One vice, however-sad to relate - we must attribute to this otherwise virtuous insect-namely, that of greediness. What is a vice in the bee is an advantage to mankind generally, for her great sin lies in her insatiable appetite for honey. Honey, honey, honey -anywhere and everywhere will she venture for honey. Even when her cells are overflowing with the saccharine fluid, she eagerly and continually throughout the summer months seeks for honey.