In fact, she has a useful pair of compasses in the shape
of claws at the ends of her fore legs.
The spider is one of the most industrious, cleanly, and patient workers
in the world. More than six hundred separate strands go to make one
slender thread of her web. She can choose, moreover, whether she will
spin a fine or coarse, a dry or spangled thread for the particular work
she has in hand.
In an hour a spider will make a web more than half a yard across, and of
a strength wonderful in proportion to its size. Steel wire of the same
thickness as a spider's thread would be less than two-thirds as strong.
The spider is a devoted mother, and will die with her little ones rather
than leave them. Some kinds of spiders carry their babies about with
them, while others fasten their cradles to a crevice in the wall.
Spiders are very useful to us in destroying the flies and troublesome
insects that annoy us. Though spiders are often called cruel, they never
torture their victims, but kill them at once by means of a poisonous
fluid which is said to deaden pain.
One day when the Scotch king, Robert Bruce, lay sick and discouraged in
a lonely shed, he watched the patient efforts of a spider to repair its
web. Six times she tried to throw the frail thread from one beam to
another, and six times she failed.
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