Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/175

 and shoulders. They breathe by leaf-shaped gills, situated under the belly, instead of spiracles in the sides; and have a heart connected with these. But as spiders are popularly considered insects, it will sufficiently suit our purpose to introduce them here as such.

Spiders are usually classed according to their difference of color, whether black, brown, yellow, &c., or sometimes by the number and arrangement of their eyes: of these organs some possess no fewer than ten, others eight, and others again six.

Some species of spiders are known to possess the power of not merely forming a web, but also of spinning, for the protection of their eggs, a bag somewhat similar in form and substance to the cocoon of the silk-worm. The apparatus by which they construct their ingenious fabrics, is much more complicated than that which is common to the various species of caterpillars. Caterpillars have only two reservoirs for the materials of their silk; but the spider spins minute fibres from fine papillæ, or small nipples placed in the hinder part of its body. These papillæ serve the office of so many wire-drawing machines, from which the silken threadlets are ejected. Spiders, according to the dissections of M. Treviranus, have four principal vessels, two larger and two smaller, with a number of minute ones at their base. Several small tubes branch towards the reservoirs, for carrying to them, no doubt, a supply of the secreted material. Swammerdam describes them as twisted into many coils of an agate color. We do not find them coiled, but nearly straight, and of a deep yellow color. From these, when broken, threads can be drawn out like those spun by the spider, though we cannot draw them so fine by many degrees.

From these little flasks or bags of gum, situated near the apex of the abdomen, and not at the mouth as in caterpillars, a tube originates, and terminates in the external spinnerets, which may be seen by the naked eye in the form of five little teats surrounded by a small circle, as represented in Fig. 8.