how. The shell bursts, the crab leaves it; and, as it is now quite unprotected, it keeps out of the way of danger until its new shell is completely formed. Thus the crab, as it grows larger, is supplied from time to time with a new covering.

5. We will now talk of another matter. Suppose that a boy should fall down in the street, and a loaded cart pass over one of his legs, crushing the bone to pieces, what would be done to him? The surgeon would cut off his leg, and he would have to be content with a wooden one. Suppose now that you were throwing a stone into the tide, and that it fell on the leg of a crab and crushed it to pieces, what would be done for the crab? No surgeon could get a wooden leg made for him. The crab is, however, quite independent of such assistance; he would fling off the broken leg at the joint above the broken part, and a new leg would grow, and in time become as large and as useful in every respect as the one that was there at first.

6. You know many dead bodies of various kinds are thrown into the sea; many are carried into it by rivers; many animals die there. If all those bodies were allowed to decay, and each day added to their number, the sea would become unfit for any creature to live in, and it would give out a stench that would kill those that lived on the neighboring land. To prevent such a result, there are multitudes of animals that feed on dead and decaying bodies, and find their best aliment in what would otherwise become injurious. The common shore crab is one of these scavengers of the sea.

PATTERSON.

97.

THE SPIDER AND ITS HOME.

am-a-teur', one devoted to a pursuit | in-spi-ra'tion, elevated emotion. from taste.

an-tiç'i-pât-ed, foreseen and provided per-tur-bā'tion, agitation.

for.

a'qua-for'tis, nitric acid.

mo'bile, dexterous.

sanct'u-a-ry, consecrated spot.
trans-pires', happens.

ar'ti-san, worker, artificer. her-met'i-cal-ly, very closely.

im-pon'der-a-ble, without sensible weight.

in-cu-ba'tion, the act of sitting eggs.

tü'ber-cles [-klz], projecting feelers.
ves'ti-bule, antechamber.
vir-tu-o'si [-se], great artists.
vis'cous, adhesive.

woof, texture of threads.

1. WHEN a spider has produced a sufficient quantity of thread to undertake a web, it glides from an elevated point, and unwinds its skein. There it remains suspended, and afterwards reascending to its starting-point by the assistance of its tiny cordage, moves towards another point; and continues to trace in this manner a series of radii all diverging from the same center. The skein stretched, it is busied next in weaving the woof by crossing the thread. Running from radius to radius, it touches each with its tubercles, which fasten to it the circular border. The whole is not a compact tissue, but a veritable network, so proportioned that all the meshes of the circle are invariably of the same size.

2. This web, woven out of itself, living and vibrating, is much more than an instrument: it is a part of its being. Itself of a circular form, the spider seems to expand within this circle, and prolong the filaments of its nerves to the radiating threads which it weaves. In the center of its web it has its greatest force for attack or defence. Out of that center the spider is timid; a fly will make it recoil.

The web is its electric telegraph, responding to the lightest touch, and revealing the presence of an imperceptible and almost imponderable victim; while, at the same time, being slightly viscous in substance, it retains the prey, or delays and entangles a dangerous enemy.

3. In windy weather, the continual agitation of the web prevents it from giving an account of what transpires, and the spider then remains at the center. But usually it keeps near its machinery, hidden under a leaf, that it may not terrify its victims, or fall a prey to any of its numerous foes.

4. Prudence and patience, rather than courage, are its characteristics. Its experience is too great, it has undergone too many accidents and misadventures, it is too much accustomed to the severities of fate, to indulge in any surpassing audacity. It is afraid even of an ant. The latter, often a mischievous individual, restless, rugged, and afraid of nothing, frequently persists in exploring the strange woof, of which it can make nothing. The spider accordingly gives way to it, whether it fears the acid of the ant, which burns like aquafortis, or whether, like a good artisan, it calculates that a long and obstinate struggle will cost it more time than will the manufacture of another web. Therefore, without yielding to the promptings of wounded pride, it allows the ant to strut about, and takes up its post a little farther off.

5. If the web, the instrument of its trade, is destroyed, a somewhat protracted fast renders the spider unable to secrete a fresh supply of thread, and it soon perishes of hunger. It is constantly confined in this vicious circle: to spin, it requires food; to feed, it must spin. When people speak of the eager gluttony of the spider, they forget

that it must either eat a double quantity, or soon perish: eat to recruit its body, and eat to renew its thread.

6. The spider surpasses all other solitary-living insects. It not only possesses its nest, its ambush, its temporary hunting-station,- certain species have a regular house, a house of very complex construction: a vestibule, and a sleeping-chamber, and a mode of egress in the rear; and, finally, a door which is a very triumph of art, for it closes of itself, falling back by its own weight. In certain countries and under certain alarming conditions, it has need of profound ingenuity, and has discovered this little miracle of prudence and combination.

7. In the Brazilian forests a little spider has its case suspended exactly in the center of its web; and thither it hurries at the slightest approach of danger, and has no sooner entered than the door suddenly closes behind it by a

walled round, with smooth and polished sides, and a double tapestry, a coarse strong hanging on the earthward front, and a fine satiny hanging in the interior. The orifice of the well is closed by a door. This door is a disk, much larger at the top than at the bottom, and let into a groove in such a manner as to shut hermetically.

The disk contains thirty double woofs, and between the woofs intervene the same number of layers of earth, so that the entire door is really composed of sixty doors.

8. Here, in truth, is a miracle of patience; but observe, too, the ingenuity, all these doors of network and earth clamp into one another. The thread-doors at one point are prolonged to the wall, fastening the door to the wall as by a hinge. This door opens outwardly when the spider raises it to go forth, and closes by its own weight. But the enemy might eventually succeed in opening it. This has been anticipated. On the side opposite the hinge some small holes are worked in the door; and to these the spider clings, thus becoming a living bolt.

9. On the 22d of July, 1857, I discovered in an outhouse a very pretty round basket, about an inch across, made of all kinds of materials, and, as it had nothing to fear from rain, without any cover. It was very gracefully suspended to a beam by some elegant silken threads, which I should call little hands, such as are possessed by the climbing plants. Within, brooding on its eggs with a constant incubation, might be seen a spider. It never stirred, except, perhaps, for a moment at night, in quest of food. Never was there any animal so timid. At the gentlest approaches fear made it fly, and almost fall. Once when we disturbed it a little abruptly, it was seized with such an excess of terror that it did not recover for an entire day. It sat for six weeks, and, but for these perturbations, would perhaps have remained much longer.

10. Much has been said about the musical spider of Pellisson. Another and less-known anecdote is not less striking. One of those little victims that are trained into virtuosi before they are ripe of age- Berthome, illustrious