Willsford, in his Nature’s Secrets, p. 131, tells us: “Spiders creep out of their holes and narrow receptacles against wind or rain; Minerva having made them sensible of an approaching storm.”[1139] Hone, in his Every Day Book, also mentions that from Spiders prognostications as to the weather may be drawn; and gives the following instructions to read this animal-barometer: “If the weather is likely to become rainy, windy, or in other respects disagreeable, they fix the terminating filaments, on which the whole web is suspended, unusually short; and in this state they await the influence of a temperature which is remarkably variable. On the contrary, if the terminating filaments are uncommonly long, we may, in proportion to their length, conclude that the weather will be serene, and continue so at least for ten or twelve days. But if the Spiders be totally indolent, rain generally succeeds; though, on the other hand, their activity during rain is the most certain proof that it will be only of short duration, and followed with fair and constant weather. According to further observations, the Spiders regularly make some alterations in their webs or nets every twenty-four hours; if these changes take place between the hours of six and seven in the evening, they indicate a clear and pleasant night.”[1140] Pausanias tells us that after the slaughter at Chæronea, the Thebans were obliged to place a guard within the walls of their city; but which, however, after the death of Philip, and during the reign of Alexander, they drove out. For this action, this historian continues, it was that Divinity gave them tokens in the webs of Spiders of the destruction that awaited them. For, during the battle at Leuctra, the Spiders in the temple of Ceres Thesmophoros wove white webs about the doors; but when Alexander and the Macedonians attacked their dominions, their webs were found to be black.[1141] It was thought by the Classical Ancients and the old English unlucky to kill Spiders; and prognostications were made from their manner of weaving their webs.[1142] It is still thought unlucky to injure these animals. Park has the following note in his copy of Bourne and Brande’s Popular Antiquities, p. 93: “Small Spiders, termed _money-spinners_, are held by many to prognosticate good luck, if they are not destroyed or injured, or removed from the person on whom they are first observed.” In Teviotdale, Scotland, “when Spiders creep on one’s clothes, it is viewed as betokening good luck; and to destroy them is equivalent to throwing stones at one’s own head.”[1143] In Maryland, this superstition is thus expressed: If you kill a Spider upon your clothing, you destroy the presents they are then weaving for you. In the Secret Memoirs of Mr. Duncan Campbell, p. 60, in the chapter of omens, we read that “others have thought themselves secure of receiving money, if by chance a little Spider fell upon their clothes.”[1144]