ogether, is termed _cephalothorax_, is glossy-black and
covered, except in spots, with white hairs; she has also upon six of
her legs one or two brushes of black hairs;--while he is an
insignificant-looking insect of a dull-brown color and half-starved
look, with only a few scattered bristles upon his slender limbs. He does
nothing for himself, leaving her to make the web and provide the food,
and even to carry him on her back when removal is necessary; but she
makes up for the imposition by keeping him on short allowance and at a
respectful distance, excepting when the impregnation of her eggs is
necessary; and even then she is mistress of the situation, and, _etiam
in amoribus saeva_, may afterward eat him up. But of this contrast
between the two sexes, of their functions and their relations to each
other, more hereafter. It is sufficient to observe that, when this
spider is mentioned, and the sex is not specified, the _female_ is
always referred to.

[Illustration: Fig. 1. Male and Female _Nephila plumipes_.]

When, where, and how was this spider discovered? and why is it that we
have never heard of it before? To answer these questions, we must go
back three years, to the 19th of August, 1863, and to the camp of the
Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, on a desolate island a
little south from the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and in sight
of the fortress which Gillmore had just begun to strengthen by the
addition of tons of Union shot and shell, till, from tolerably strong
masonry, its walls became solid earthworks which nothing could pierce or
greatly injure. There, at the north end of Folly Island,--scarce wider
than our camp at that point, and narrower than the magnificent beach
which, at low tide, afforded ample space for the battalion drill,--I
found in a tree a very large and handsome spider, whose web was at least
three feet in diameter.

Glad enough to meet with anything new, and bearing in mind the interest
with which, when a boy, I had watched and recorded the operations of our
common house and hunting spiders, I entangled him--I didn't then know it
was _her_, so let it pass--in the web, and carried it to my tent. The
insect was very quiet, and did not attempt to escape; but presently,
after crawling slowly along my sleeve, she let herself down to the
floor, taking first the precaution, after the prudent fashion of most
spiders, to attach to the point she left a silken line, which, as