Here are a few of them: The Hunters--they live in crevices of walls and
houses, and have their name because they wander about constantly, ready
to steal upon any insect which may come in their way; the Vagrants, who,
though they will run to catch their prey when it is in sight, lie in wait
for it, rolled up in a leaf, or hiding at the bottom of a flower, just
where the flies are sure to come for honey; the Water-spiders--they manage
to live under water in a nest so nearly made of air, though in the midst
of the water, that this spider has been looked upon as the inventor of the
diving-bell. Then there is the industrious Mason, which bores a hole in the
earth, makes the walls of its little tunnel as smooth as if it worked with
trowel and mortar, and then hangs them with delicate silken curtains of its
own spinning and weaving; the Trap-door spider, so called because the mouth
of its burrowed nest is fitted with a cleverly hinged door, which the owner
of the nest can shut with its claw when it leaves home; the Pirate, which
makes a leafy raft, and skims along the water after the insects which suit
its taste; the Gossamer spider, which rises so high in the air, and floats
at its ease in its own balloon--and Epeira, the Garden spider, whose
beautiful web, covered with dewy diamonds, we have all seen, laid like some
fairy lacework, over the hedges, on an autumn morning, as if the little
weaver had been early at its work, as "wise" people usually are; and, as
God has deigned to tell us, He Himself has been.
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