CHAPTER XIV.

FACTS AND THOUGHTS ABOUT SPIDERS.


Some time ago, while turning over a quantity of rubbish in a little-used
room, I disturbed a large black spider. Rushing forth, just in time to
save itself from destruction through the capsizing of a pile of books,
it paused for one moment, took a swift comprehensive glance at the
position, then scuttled away across the floor, and was lost in an
obscure corner of the room. This incident served to remind me of a fact
I was nearly forgetting, that England is not a spiderless country. A
foreigner, however intelligent, coming from warmer regions, might very
easily make that mistake. In Buenos Ayres, the land of my nativity,
earth teems with these interesting little creatures. They abound in and
on the water, they swarm in the grass and herbage, which everywhere
glistens with the silvery veil they spin over it. Indeed it is scarcely
an exaggeration to say that there is an atmosphere of spiders, for they
are always floating about invisible in the air; their filmy threads are
unfelt when they fly against you; and often enough you are not even
aware of the little arrested aeronaut hurrying over your face with feet
lighter than the lightest thistledown.

It is somewhat strange that although, where other tribes of living
creatures are concerned, I am something of a naturalist, spiders I have
always observed and admired in a non-scientific spirit, and this must be
my excuse for mentioning the habits of some spiders without giving their
specific names--an omission always vexing to the severely-technical
naturalist. They have ministered to the love of the beautiful, the
grotesque, and the marvellous in me; but I have never _collected_ a