ales, and were to be turned into a spider, I should very much wish to
be one of the wandering spiders, and not a web-maker. Both in houses and
out of doors, things go badly with spiders' webs and their occupiers;
they are constantly disturbed, and if they get away alive, their work
has to be done over again. But a spider that does not make a web is
usually suffered to go on his way undisturbed; sometimes, indeed, the
hunting spiders are scarcely recognised as spiders, and pass for some
other kind of insect.

The hunting spiders, however, do resemble the spinners. They are mostly,
perhaps, rather more slim in the body, and are furnished with eight
legs, sharp jaws and a poison fang, being able also to spin threads,
should they need to do so. Our British hunters are nearly all small.
Some of them do not run after their prey; they lurk beside a little
pebble, or in the folds of a leaf or flower.

The running spider, called the tarantula, is not very common in Europe,
though it is found in some parts of Italy; it is sometimes known to bite
people, and an old but false belief held that the poison forced them to
keep on dancing till quite worn out. Not long ago, some persons allowed
themselves to be bitten by it, but the only effect was painful swelling.
In tropical countries, however, this spider grows to a great size, and
can cause great pain by its bite. The tarantula is of the wolf-spider
family, whose habit is to chase their prey, not lie in ambush.

We have many British wolf-spiders: one for instance--he has no English
name--is _Lycosa amentata_. This is a species that is found in numbers
about heaps of stones by the wayside, or upon chalky banks. When
alarmed, these spiders seem to vanish like magic. They also do a good
deal of hunting upon low-growing, large-leaved plants. It is amusing to
watch one standing on the edge of a leaf, whence it makes a dash at some
flying insect that alights. Frequently it misses, but, when successful,
it carries off the prey, bigger perhaps than itself, to a safe retreat.
During autumn, the female spider bears about with her the egg-bag of
yellow or whitish silk, in which the little spiders are hatched. They
are much paler than the old spiders, and remain with their mother till
they have attained to some size. They manage to live through the winter,
and are fully grown in May. Amongst the wolf-spiders generally, we find
a difference between the movements of the males and females. If har