Civilized man rarely sees the ferocity of wild beasts displayed, for even in the jungle it is hard to observe. To anyone, however, who will watch a spider devour a fly, the true picture of merciless cruelty will be apparent. With its poisoned sword-like fangs it kills its prey, and then, with its sucking mouthparts, it sucks the juice out of the carcass. [Illustration] THE MOTHER SPIDER AND HER NEST: A NURSERY OF LITTLE CANNIBALS This mother belongs to the nursery-web weavers. She wove a silken bag for her eggs and carried it about with her under her body until she found a suitable place to leave it. She had to stand on tiptoes to prevent its dragging--it was so big. The photograph shows the spiderlings hatched and running about, hundreds of them, over the fine-spun mass of silk. In these nurseries the strong eat up the weak. [Illustration] A VAGABOND SPIDER (_Pardosa milvina_, Hentz) This is a vagabond of the spider world, building no nest or web, content to use her marvelous silk in the construction only of a sac in which to lay her eggs. This sac she carries about with her until the eggs have hatched and the spiderlings are strong enough to take care of themselves, and then she rips open the sac along a distinct seam on the edge and turns her babies loose to shift for themselves. These voracious little cannibals have, however, already learned to forage, as the struggle for existence in many species of spiders begins in the egg sac, and it is only the strongest who emerge. In other words, they eat each other up. They do not grow to be more than half an inch in length, but they are among the most active of all spiders, and in the United States alone there are nearly a score of species of these little soldiers of fortune living nowhere and roaming the damp fields in search of prey. [Illustration] THE MALE GRASS SPIDER (_Agelina nævia_, Walck.) On a summer morning, if you rise with the sun, and if the night has been cool, you will find your lawn covered with most exquisite shimmering gossamer patches, so diaphanous that if you touch them or breathe on them they fade away. These are the webs of the young grass spiders and, if you watch one of them closely, you will see that the tiny spider is waiting below the web in a funnel of woven spider's silk. It will run out quickly enough if you throw a fly into its net. It is not an orb-weaver and runs over its net instead of climbing along the under side of it as many orb-weavers do. That this is the photograph of a mature male is evident from the genital palpi, resembling a pair of short front legs. In the autumn the males and females both desert their webs to wander, for it is not only their mating season but the close of their brief existence. Under a bit of bark the female lays her eggs and waits for death, guarding her progeny till she dies, although she has no hope of seeing them alive.