The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106,
August, 1866, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866

Author: Various

Release Date: October 16, 2007 [EBook #23040]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XVIII.--AUGUST, 1866.--NO. CVI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
to the end of the article.

HOW MY NEW ACQUAINTANCES SPIN.

The strictly professional man may have overcome his natural aversion to
some of the most interesting objects of his study, such as snakes, and
toads, and spiders, and vermin of all kinds; but people in general have
always required that any attempt to force such abominations upon their
notice should be preceded by a more or less elaborate and humble
acknowledgment of their hideous aspect, their ferocious disposition,
their dark and bloody deeds, and the utter impossibility of their
conducing in any way to human comfort and convenience.

But, while admitting the truth of much that has been thus urged against
spiders as a class, I must decline, or at least defer, conforming to
custom in speaking of the particular variety which we are about to
consider, and I believe that it will need only a glance at the insect
and its silk, and a brief notice of its habits, to justify my
indisposition to follow the usual routine.

Without apology, then, I shall endeavor to show that in the structure,
the habits, the mode of growth, and, above all, in the productions of
this spider are to be found subjects worthy the attention of every class
of minds; for to the naturalist is exh