Not one spider would
keep her hold. But with a piece of wire bent at the end in the shape of
a hook, he finally lifted one out upon the ground. How bright and clean
and untouched she looked! Her limbs and a part of the thorax were as
black as jet and shone as if they had just been polished. No lady in her
parlor could have been freer from any touch of soil or earth-stain than
was she. On the ground, in the strong sunlight, she seemed to be lost.
We turned her around and tried to induce her to enter the nest again;
but over and over she ran across the open door without heeding it. In
the novel situation in which she suddenly found herself, all her wits
deserted her, and not till I took her between my thumb and finger and
thrust her abdomen into the hole, did she come to herself. The touch of
that silk-lined tube caused the proper reaction, and she backed quickly
into it and disappeared.

Just what natural enemy the trap-door spider has I do not know. I never
saw a nest that had been broken into or in any way disturbed, except
those which we had disturbed in our observations.

IV. THE DESERT NOTE

I often wonder what mood of Nature this world of cacti which we run
against in the great Southwest expresses. Certainly something savage and
merciless. To stab and stab again suits her humor. How well she tempers
her daggers and bayonets! How hard and smooth and sharp they are! How
they contrast with the thick, succulent stalks and leaves which bear
them! It is a desert mood; heat and drought appear to be the exciting
causes. The scarcity of water seems to stimulate Nature to store up
water in vegetable tissues, just as it stimulates men to build great
dams and reservoirs. These giant cacti are reservoirs of water. But why
spines and prickles and cruel bayonets? They certainly cannot be for
protection or defense; the grass and other vegetation upon which the
grazing animals feed are not armed with spines.

If the cacti were created that grazing animals in the desert might have
something to feed upon, as our fathers' way of looking at things might
lead us to believe, why was that benevolent plan frustrated by the armor
of needles and spines?

Nature reaches her hungry and thirsty creatures this broad, mittened
hand like a cruel joke. It smites like a serpent and stings like a
scorpion. The strange, many-colored, fascinating desert! Beware! Agonies
are one of her garments.

All we can say about it is that Nature has her p