“Spiders!” you say. “Ugh! what dreadful things. I don’t want to read about them.” But surely any one as big as you are need not be afraid of a poor little spider. Don’t you remember when “there came a big spider and sat down beside her” it was little Miss Moffat that was frightened away, and I don’t suppose she was much more than a baby.
You are quite a big boy or girl or you wouldn’t be able to read this, and spiders are really so clever and interesting that I believe you will enjoy hearing a little about them. Let us look at the picture of the spider in the web and pretend it is a real one; and shall we give it a name? I don’t believe Miss Moffat would have been frightened if she had known a little more about it, or if it had a name, so we will call this little spider “Emma.”
Emma is a girl spider and she will grow up ever so much bigger than any boy spider. It is rather topsy-turvy in the spider world, for the she-spiders are not only bigger but much stronger and fiercer than the little he-spiders, and they are quarrelsome, too, and love a fight. This need not make you think Emma is going to be savage with you; she would be much too afraid, for you are a big giant to her. It is only with other spiders and insects her own size she will fight.
When Emma was younger she was a light green color, but as she gets older she grows darker and darker and different markings come out on her back. As you grow, your clothes get too small for you and you have to have new ones or a tuck is let down. This is the same with Emma, only, as her coat happens to be her skin as well, it is no good thinking about a tuck. I don’t know how many new frocks you have, but Emma has changed hers seven times before she was grown up.
If you look closely at a real spider you will see it has hairs on its body and on its legs. Emma, too, has these same fine hairs which are very important. She can neither see nor hear very well, so these hairs, which are sensitive, can warn her of danger. They feel the least trembling of the web and are even conscious of sound, so you see how useful they are.
The spider is rather a lonely person and not at all sociable. Perhaps this is because she has to work so hard for a living. In fact, all her time, day and night, seems taken up either with making or repairing the web, and lying in wait, when she dozes far back in her little shelter out of sight, with one hand always on the tell-tale cord that connects with the web and lets her know of its slightest movement.