The camera, consisting of several long boxes which fit into one another, is stretched on a table made of board and a number of posts set in the ground. At one end is the lens and at the other, the ground glass plate to focus the image on. The monster is mounted on a small wooden block and set up the proper distance in front of the lens. It is moved back and forth in response to directions from the operator, at the other end of the camera, who is watching the image on the ground glass. Lying on the camera above the lens is a black paper cone which, when everything is ready, is put over the lens between it and the monster to prevent the smoke from the flash powder from drifting between the lens and the insect during the exposure. Wills, the assistant, is holding the Prosch magnesium blow lamp, and the insect is shaded from the direct rays of the sun by a large pane of glass covered with a thin sheet of tissue paper. Direct sunlight is reflected from the hairs and polished surfaces of the insects and makes spots on the negative.] [Illustration: SOME OF THE MONSTERS AS THEY APPEAR WHEN MOUNTED ON PINS IN AN INSECT BOX It has always seemed a pity to me that these beautiful forms of life should be so evanescent. We look at their dried remains in collections and are impressed by their colors and grotesque forms, but we should not forget that after all these are nothing but their dried-up corpses and scarcely more to be compared in real beauty with their living bodies than are the Egyptian mummies comparable to the living faces and forms of the great Pharaohs.] [Illustration: THE MONSTERS PICTURED ON THE SUCCEEDING PAGES, AND MANY MORE, IMPRISONED IN ONE MUSEUM CASE They are all pinned in the box and have dried out and changed almost beyond recognition, but the impression which their portraits have made will, I hope, be lasting.] Knowing little about insects I have been dependent upon the kindness of the entomologists of the National Museum, in particular on Dr. L. O. Howard, for the scientific names of the monsters, which names have given me access to what is published about them in the handbooks on entomology. Practically all of the negatives and prints have been made by Mr. Scott Clime of the Department of Agriculture, who took a particular interest in their preparation. To Mr. Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Director and Editor of the National Geographic Society, is due the credit of realizing the popular interest these pictures would have and who, in contrast with more timid publishers, reproduced thirty-nine of them in the National Geographic Magazine and urged the preparation of this book. CHAPTER I THE SPIDER WORLD THE SPIDER WORLD