close
column, protected on all sides by skirmishers, which continually report
to the main body; how some of these young, whose parents were caught on
Long Island, South Carolina, a year ago, and which were hatched from the
egg in October last, have grown up during a Northern winter, have
themselves become parents and laid eggs; how they periodically cast off
their skins, even to that of the eyes, the jaws, and the breathing
tubes, and how, from too great impatience, sad accidents sometimes
befall them on these occasions; how, also, I have reeled silk from
several of these spiders, and made a thread which has been woven in a
power-loom as a woof or filling upon a warp of common black silk, so as
to make a bit of ribbon two inches wide, thereby proving that it is real
silk and can be treated as such.

Much, too, could be said of the only other attempts to utilize spiders'
silk, a knowledge of which would have materially aided me. In France,
one hundred and fifty years ago, M. Bon made gloves and stockings of
silk got by carding spiders' cocoons, and seventy years later, as I have
but recently ascertained, Termeyer, a Spaniard, not only used the
cocoons, but also, by an observation similar to my own, was led to reel
the silk from the living insect. He, however, had poorer spiders or too
little perseverance, or friends and a government influenced by a most
short-sighted economy and prudence, else the highly interesting and
instructive account of his experiments would have been familiar to some
one in this country, and would not have waited these many years to be
found by accident last spring in an obscure corner of the Astor Library.

I will add, finally, that I believe some other geometrical spiders,
especially of the genus _Nephila_, may be found as docile, and as
productive of beautiful silk, as the species I have described. At any
rate, you cannot find a more interesting inmate of your Wardian case
than some large geometrical spider.

WHAT DID SHE SEE WITH?

I could not have been more than seven or eight years old, when it
happened; but it might have been yesterday. Among all other childish
memories, it stands alone. To this very day it brings with it the old,
utter sinking of the heart, and the old, dull sense of mystery.

To read the story, you should have known my mother. To understand it,
you should understand her. But that is quite impossible now, for there
is a quiet spot over the hill, and past the c