spider, and if I wished to preserve one should not know how to do it. I
have been "familiar with the face" of these monsters so long that I have
even learnt to love them; and I believe that if Emerson rightly predicts
that spiders are amongst the things to be expelled from earth by the
perfected man of the future, then a great charm and element of interest
will be lost to nature. Though loving them, I cannot, of course, feel
the same degree of affection towards all the members of so various a
family. The fairy gossamer, scarce seen, a creature of wind and
sunshine; the gem-like Epeira in the centre of its Starry web; even the
terrestrial Salticus, with its puma-like strategy, certainly appeal more
to our aesthetic feelings than does the slow heavy Mygale, looking at a
distance of twenty yards away, as he approaches you, like a gigantic
cockroach mounted on stilts. The rash fury with which the female
wolf-spider defends her young is very admirable; but the admiration she
excites is mingled with other feelings when we remember that the brave
mother proves to her consort a cruel and cannibal spouse.

Possibly my affection for spiders is due in a great measure to the
compassion I have always felt for them. Pity, 'tis said, is akin to
love; and who can help experiencing that tender emotion that considers
the heavy affliction nature has laid on the spiders in compensation for
the paltry drop of venom with which she, unasked, endowed them! And
here, of course, I am alluding to the wasps. These insects, with a
refinement of cruelty, prefer not to kill their victims outright, but
merely maim them, then house them in cells where the grubs can vivisect
them at leisure. This is one of those revolting facts the fastidious
soul cannot escape from in warm climates; for in and out of open windows
and doors, all day long, all the summer through, comes the busy
beautiful mason-wasp. A long body, wonderfully slim at the waist, bright
yellow legs and thorax, and a dark crimson abdomen,--what object can be