American spiders and their spinningworkA natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits . 400 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. The above facts, uncovering as they do so hard a destiny impendingover every stage of aranead Ufe, might well awake sympathy in the breastof the most pronounced spider hater. To those who know the usefulnessto man of the much enduring race, and view its destruction from thestandpoint of human disadvantage, the facts are melancholj^ enough. Butafter all there seems a judicial fitness in the order
American spiders and their spinningworkA natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits . 400 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. The above facts, uncovering as they do so hard a destiny impendingover every stage of aranead Ufe, might well awake sympathy in the breastof the most pronounced spider hater. To those who know the usefulnessto man of the much enduring race, and view its destruction from thestandpoint of human disadvantage, the facts are melancholj^ enough. Butafter all there seems a judicial fitness in the order of things which ap-points avengers from the midst of the insect world against the chief de-stroyer of the insect hosts. Seeing, therefore, that some check is requiredupon the excessive increase of spiders, we may regard their relation tothe Hymenoptera with some complacency from the view point of Fii:. 339. Nest ol Vireo noveborocensis woven together, with bands and threadsof plundered spider webs. IX. In speaking of the enemies of the spider we liave thus far omitted one of the most determined and destructive—man himself. But it will be observed tliat I have been writing of the natural enemies of Foolishly spiders, and in my opinion nran cannot reasonably be classed among these. His hostility to the various families of the spider world is without reason not only, but is against reason. It is an example of indulgence in a prejudice which has been long fostered by Man. ENEMIES AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 401 ignorance, and which, I am thankful to record, is yielding before thelight of modern science. In truth, the spider is not only a harmless creat-ure as far as man is concerned, but is, on the contrary, a most helpfulone to liim in many respects. Slie is one of those checks established inthe economy of Nature against the increase of insects whose presencewould make the world well
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1890
