These little creatures are so transparent, that it is very difficult
to make out all the details of their mouths accurately. The females
are very fertile, and breed with great rapidity under favorable
circumstances all the year round.

The red spiders, as I have already stated, are not real spiders, but
belong to the family Acarina or mites, a family included in the same
class (the arachnida) as the true spiders, from which they may be
easily distinguished by the want of any apparent division between the
head and thorax and body; in the true spiders the head and thorax are
united together and form one piece, to which the body is joined by a
slender waist. The arachnidæ are followed by the myriapoda
(centipedes, etc.), and these by the insectiæ or true insects. The red
spiders belong to the kind of mites called spinning mites, to
distinguish them from those which do not form a web of any kind. It is
not quite certain at present whether there is only one or more species
of red spider; but this is immaterial to the horticulturist, as their
habits and the means for their destruction are the same. The red
spider (Tetranychus telarius--Fig. 1) is very minute, not measuring
more than the sixtieth of an inch in length when full grown; their
color is very variable, some individuals being nearly white, others
greenish, or various shades of orange, and red. This variation in
color probably depends somewhat on their age or food--the red ones are
generally supposed to be the most mature. The head is furnished with a
pair of pointed mandibles, between which is a pointed beak or sucker
(Fig. 2). The legs are eight in number; the two front pairs project
forward and the other two backward; they are covered with long stiff
hairs; the extremities of the feet are provided with long bent hairs,
which are each terminated by a knob. The legs and feet appear to be
only used in drawing out the threads and weaving the web. The thread