Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/390

374 Arachne was in despair and hung herself, whereupon Minerva's chagrin was so great that she transformed her into a spider, and her descendants preserve much of her skill.

We are apt to think of spiders as insects, but really they are only distantly related to insects, their first cousins being scorpions and king crabs. The spider's body consists of two parts.It has four pairs of legs, a pair of palpi, and a pair of mandibles. The legs are jointed, and on the last joint there are three claws. The palpi are used as feelers and to hold the food. The breathing apparatus of the spider is a combination of lungs and gills. It has glands containing poison which lie partly in the head and partly in the basal joint of the mandibles. There is a tiny opening in the claw on the mandible, out of which the poison flows when the spider captures its prey. It has eight eyes. The spiders are classified largely by the different arrangements and grouping of the eyes. Some have them in one or more clusters, some in rows, and others scattered about. They appear to be able to see as well by night as by day. Near the end of the body are the spinnerets—two, three, or four pairs—out of which the silk comes for weaving the webs, nests, and cocoons.

Usually the female spider is much larger and stronger than the male. One naturalist thus graphically describes their wedded life: "Their honeymoon is of short duration, and is terminated by the bride's banqueting on the bridegroom. Doubtless she evinces taste and discrimination in her appreciation of a 'nice young man.'"

Spiders, like lobsters and other crustaceans, have the power of reproducing certain parts if they happen to meet with an injury, as legs, palpi, and spinnerets.

We find as marked differences in habits, tastes, and characters among spiders as among human beings. Some kinds prefer always living in houses or cellars, not seeming to care for any fresh air or out-of-door exercise. Mr. Jesse tells of two spiders that lived for thirteen years in opposite corners of a drawer which was used for soap and candles. Others delight in making burrows in the earth, in dwelling under stones or behind the loose bark on trees, and others live under water. Many never leave their webs, but patiently wait, hoping some insect will become entangled in the snares they have set. Others dash about and seize upon every luckless insect that crosses their path. The most adventurous of all are those that sail out into the world on one of their own little threads. Darwin tells of encountering thousands of them many leagues from land when he was taking his famous