he current habits of the aranead tribes
yielded to personification. The water spiders permitted the introduction
of smugglers, pirates and sailors; the burrowing and trapdoor spiders
opened up tales of caves and subterranean abodes; the ballooning spiders
permitted an adaptation of modern military methods of reconnoissance;
and so on through a long list of aranead habits.

In order to make this more apparent, and to give adult readers, parents
and teachers, and the older class of youthful readers, a scientific key
to the various situations, brief notes have been added in an Appendix,
to which foot-note references have been made in most of the chapters.
Moreover, the natural habits personified are interpreted by figures set
into the text with no explanation but the legend written thereunder.

The crudely drawn cuts which figure in the pages as "The Boy's
Illustrations" are exact reproductions of sketches made by a lad in my
own family, between eight and nine years old, to whom, with others, the
manuscript was read as a sort of test of its quality. Encouraged by the
advice of one of the keenest and most sympathetic students of child life
in America, I have ventured to give a few of these drawings to the
public, as a curious study in the operations of child-mind.

I had agreed with myself not to print the Brownie Book until my
scientific work upon the spiders was finished, and the manuscript
remained untouched until the winter of 1885-6. At that time I seemed to
see the nearing end of my studies, and portions of the Brownie-Pixie
story were distributed to various artists, among them Mr. Dan. C. Beard
and Mr. Harry L. Poore. Some of the illustrations at that time made,
appear in the following pages, bearing date 1886. "Tenants of an Old
Farm" had now appeared, and was so well received that it was thought
advisable to connect this book with that by an "Introductory Chapter"
intended for older readers, and which gives the key to the motive of the
story. Early in 1886 I recalled all contracts and arrangements for
publication, as a prolonged sickness compelled me to drop scientific
work and defer the issue of the "American Spiders." On the very day that
the binders placed the first finished copy of the third and last volume
of that work in my hands, the "copy" of "Old Farm Fairies" went to the
printer.

H. C. McC.

THE MANSE, PHILADELPHIA, _May 21, A. D. 1895._

TH