advancing a step or two until sufficiently near to hurl his spear. The
Salticus approaches a fly in the same manner, till near enough to make
its spring. Another is the Trapdoor spider. Another the Dolomedes, that
runs over the surface of the water in pursuit of its prey, and dives
down to escape from its enemies; and, strangest of all, the Argyroneta,
that has its luminous dwelling at the bottom of streams; and just as a
mason carries bricks and mortar to its building, so does this spider
carry down bubbles of air from the surface to enlarge its mysterious
house, in which it lays its eggs and rears its young. Community of
descent must be supposed of species having such curious and complex
instincts; but how came these feeble creatures, unable to transport
themselves over seas and continents like the aerial gossamer, to be so
widely distributed, and inhabiting regions with such different
conditions? This can only be attributed to the enormous antiquity of the
species, and of this antiquity the earliness in which the instinct
manifests itself in the young spiders is taken as evidence.

A more important matter, the intelligence of spiders, has not yet
received the attention it deserves. The question of insect
intelligence--naturalists are agreed that insects do possess
intelligence--is an extremely difficult one; probably some of our
conclusions on this matter will have to be reconsidered. For instance,
we regard the Order Hymenoptera as the most intelligent because most of
the social insects are included in it; but it has not yet been proved,
probably never will be proved, that the social instincts resulted from
intelligence which has "lapsed." Whether ants and bees were more
intelligent than other insects during the early stages of their organic
societies or not, it will hardly be disputed by any naturalist who has
observed insects for long that many solitary species display more
intelligence in their actions than those that live in communities.