ON SPIDERS.
[To THE EDITOR or THZ "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—With your leave I will continue the history of the- spider from the Spectator of September 12th. A wasp having left its appointed orbit for the open window and the forbidden fruits of the table, was killed and placed in its web. On next observing it the wasp had been slung up and placed in a satanic attitude behind its back, and the spider was devouring its head. In the meanwhile, in my absence, the providential provision for the day had arrived in the shape of a bluebottle. This had been neatly " webbed," but not without a terrible struggle, for the greater part of the web was rent in pieces. Most of the next day Penelope contemplated in sorrow the injury to her web. To console her I placed a small piece of raw meat in the uninjured part. Om the strength of this she built an entirely new web during the night, but the heavy rain very soon demolished it, though the " tent ropes "—some more than 2 ft. in length—were generally left intact, and part of the outer configuration. Another small piece of raw meat with a dead fly on the top was placed on. the wreck of the new web. The following morning she was hanging from her sill corner endeavouring to complete the deglutition of the meat. When I came in at middle-day she was feeding again ; then looking at me through the corner of her eye, metaphorically, of course, she dropped the rest and retired to the sill. I did not feed her again, but she has, last night, built another entirely new web of different design and much closer texture. Extremes appear to meet in spiders, for I saw a little red one the other day no larger than a pin- head, and I think it is Mr. Hudson in one of his books who tells us of a spider that pursued a horseman for some distance, ending by running up the lash of his whip.—I am, Sir, ha., Bournemouth, September 14th. GEORGE W. INGRAM.
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