with one defeat, in this manner it continued to lay
siege to another's web for three days, and at length, having killed
the defendant, actually took possession. When smaller flies happen to
fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very
patiently waits till it is sure of them; for upon his immediately
approaching, the terror of his appearance might give the captive
strength sufficient to get loose; the manner then is to wait patiently
till by ineffectual and impotent struggles the captive has wasted all
its strength, and then it becomes a certain and easy conquest.

The insect I am now describing lived three years; every year it
changed its skin and got a new set of legs. I have sometimes plucked
off a leg, which grew again in two or three days. At first it dreaded
my approach to its web, but at last it became so familiar as to take a
fly out of my hand; and upon my touching any part of the web, would
immediately leave its hole, prepared either for a defense or an
attack.

To complete this description, it may be observed that the male spiders
are much less than the female, and that the latter are oviparous. When
they come to lay, they spread a part of their web under the eggs, and
then roll them up carefully, as we roll up things in a cloth, and thus
hatch them in their hole. If disturbed in their holes they never
attempt to escape without carrying this young brood, in their forceps,
away with them, and thus frequently are sacrificed to their paternal
affection.

As soon as ever the young ones leave their artificial covering, they
begin to spin, and almost sensibly seem to grow bigger. If they have
the good fortune, when even but a day old, to catch a fly, they fall
to with good appetites; but they live sometimes three or four days
without any sort of sustenance, and yet still continue to grow larger,
so as every day to double their former size. As they grow old,
however, they do not still continue to increase, but their legs only
continue to grow longer; and when a spider becomes entirely stiff with
age and unable to seize its prey, it dies at length of hunger.

III

A CHINAMAN'S VIEW OF LONDON[53]

Think not, O thou guide of my youth! that absence can impair my
respect, or interposing trackless deserts blot your reverend figure
from my memory. The further I travel I feel the pain of separation
with stronger force; those ties that bind me to my native country and
you are still unb