Ten or twelve paces farther on, the young naturalist discovered another spider, and plied me with numerous questions about it. I could only give him a few general facts as to this curious class of animals.
"But, I say, papa, there must be a great many different species of spiders, for I see some at every step—green, black, and yellow."
"There are so many species that all of them are not yet known; indeed, I believe that the Mexican spiders have not hitherto been described. It is necessary to study them on the spot, for their soft bodies change their shape in drying, and the proper means of preserving them are not within the reach of an ordinary traveller."
In passing along, I broke through some threads of a light web stretching between two bushes. The proprietor of the web—a gray spider—immediately made its appearance, and set hurriedly to work to repair the involuntary damage I had committed.
"Where does the thread come from?" asked Lucien; "it is so thin that I can scarcely see it."
"From four reservoirs situated at the lower part of the spider's abdomen, and filled with a gummy matter which becomes solid as soon as it is exposed to the air. These reservoirs are pierced with about a thousand holes, from each of which proceeds a thread invisible to the naked eye, for it takes a thousand of them to form the thread the spider is now spinning."
"How sorry I am now that I hadn't collected more of these curious insects! Some we have met with were very curious."
"In the first place," I replied, "spiders are not insects; they have both heart and lungs, but insects breathe through air-pipes.[P] Added to this, insects have antennæ, and undergo metamorphoses, which is not the case with the spider. You must recollect, too, that the spider is akin to the scorpion."
"Yes; but scorpions don't know how to spin."
"Well, all spiders do not possess this art. One of the species you were looking at just now lives on plants, and would be much embarrassed if it happened to fall into the web of its spinning sister; added to which, it would run no small risk of being devoured."