Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/815

Rh mother watches the cocoon unceasingly, even forgetting to feed herself. When the young have escaped from their cradle, the starved mother returns to her web, where she sits and devours flies so numerously that the ground beneath becomes littered with their bodies. The domestic spider rarely inhabits the holes in rocks and the hollows of old trees, which are preferred by so many other creatures. Open-air species of the south and center of Europe, where the temperature is never rigorous, learn in the cold climates of the north, as in Scandinavia, to insinuate themselves into the houses—wise animals, that seem to know they will require a shelter from the cold.

We inhabitants of houses need not be above sharing our life with spiders. The part they perform is appreciated in the country, where they are not destroyed or disturbed in bedrooms or stables. The flies are a perpetual cause of torment to the people and to animals, and they perish in the webs of spiders, with perceptible decrease in their numbers. Spiders are, indeed, valuable servants given us by Nature.

On clear and sunny days, especially in the latter part of the summer, when a light breeze is blowing, long threads and flakes of a snowy whiteness may be seen floating in the air; or, covering the grass of the flowery meadows, they wave in the breeze and cause on the lawns shimmerings of strange effect. The peasantry of France call them the Virgin's threads. More accurately the naturalist would say they are the threads, abandoned as if to chance, of a kind of spider very common in the fields, which is called the gossamer spider. These spiders are wanderers, and frequent low plants and shrubs; small in size and loving the bright light, they wear lively colors which often confound them with the flowers and mask them from the pursuit of carnivorous animals. Their motions are abrupt and rapid, and their broad bellies give them a singular gait, something like that of crabs that we see running over the sea-beaches. They do not spin webs, but watch for passing insects, and, precipitating themselves upon their game with a sudden spring and extraordinary address, they rarely fail to secure it. The gossamer spider takes shelter under stones or plants or in holes. At the breeding-season they construct a sack to hold their eggs, and from that moment become sedentary and abstinent, watching over their posterity.

As day butterflies are gayer than night-moths, so do the epeïras show to better advantage than other spiders. They have for the most part either handsome colors or agreeable shades, and they hold the supreme rank as spinners. The European representatives of the group are modest in appearance, but in tropical countries the species to large size add luxury in dress. They are numerous enough on the globe to form a large family, that of the Epeïridœ,