Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/30

The Life of the Spider receives the products of the work of respiration performed under the cover of the outer membrane. Instead of being expelled through the egg-shell, the carbonic acid, the incessant result of the vital oxidization, is accumulated in this sort of gasometer, inflates and distends it and presses upon the lid. When the insect is ripe for hatching, a superadded activity in the respiration completes the inflation, which perhaps has been preparing since the first evolution of the germ. At last, yielding to the increasing pressure of the gaseous bladder, the lid becomes unsealed. The Chick in its shell has its air-chamber; the young Reduvius has its bomb of carbonic acid: it frees itself in the act of breathing.'

One would never weary of dipping eagerly into these inexhaustible treasures. We imagine, for instance, that, from seeing cobwebs so frequently displayed in all manner of places, we possess adequate notions of the genius and methods of our familiar spiders. Far from it: the realities of scientific observation call for an entire volume crammed with revelations of which we had no conception. I will simply name, at random, the 26