Fort Cameron, Utah Territory.
I saw a large spider this morning. When I first observed it, it had already woven a large web in the corner of the windows and had attached it by long braces to a rustic lounge beneath the window. As I was watching it, a house-fly became entangled in the web. As it was struggling to free itself, the spider saw it, ran up to the spot where it was caught, seized and covered it with a slimy stuff, after which it proceeded to eat the fly up. It had a very small head, and a body the size of a small marble. It had four feelers curved over its head, and four legs, in three colors, red, white, and black, and covered with a kind of fur.
William L.
What you supposed to be feelers were legs, spiders having eight legs, and no wings nor antennæ. If you could have looked at the threads of your spider's web through a microscope, you would have seen that each thread was composed of hundreds of fine strands. Inside the spider's body are bags filled with a gummy substance, out of which these strands are drawn through several knobs, called spinnerets, each of which is full of exceedingly tiny tubes, a thousand of them taking up about as much space as the point of a pin. The spider usually covers its victim, as yours did the fly, with a sticky substance, and if it is not very hungry it hangs it up for future use. Spiders live both out doors and in, and some of them select very splendid habitations. King Solomon said, "The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." A spider once saved the life of Robert Bruce of Scotland by weaving a web over the mouth of a cave where he had taken refuge from his enemies. They saw it, and concluded there was no one inside. Spiders belong to the order of articulate animals, though they breathe like insects. There is another peculiarity about the garden spider, which you may have an opportunity of watching. The liquid silk of which a spider weaves its web is slowly secreted, and the spider never wastes it. So spiders do not spin or mend their webs when it is likely to rain, and if you see them with plenty of work on hand, you may take it as a sign of fine weather.
Alton, Illinois.
I am seven years old, and I like the stories in Young People very much, especially "Toby Tyler" and "Phil's Fairies." I like "Tim and Tip" too. My little brother cried when mamma read how Captain Pratt whipped Tim. I felt sorry too, and hope Tim won't stay with him long. My little brother is five years old, and his name is Clay. We have three cats. The old cat's name is Spot, and the two kittens are called Browny and Blacky.
Ethel B.