"This kind of spider, then, boys, I saw in Jamaica, and I saw its house, too. It is called the mason-spider. The nest or house which I saw was a tube made of very hard clay, about six inches long, and an inch across, and was a little bent at one end. The inside of this tube was lined all the way through with a kind of soft silky stuff, something like silk-paper, but stronger, and it was of a yellowish colour; but the curious part was the door. I never saw any thing which an insect had made more strange than that. This door was round, about as large as a quarter of a dollar, and was a little hollowed on the upper side like a saucer; the inside of it was rounded like the outside of the saucer. It was of the same stuff with the lining of the nest, and seemed to be made of more than a dozen pieces of that lining, put one on the top of another: it was shaped so, too, that the inside layers or pieces were the broadest, and the outside ones became smaller and smaller, except at the hinge, which was about an inch long. All the pieces in the door were joined into this hinge, and then the hinge was joined and worked into the lining in the tube. That made the hinge the thickest and strongest part of the whole work. How the spider made it so, boys, I cannot tell; but so it was, that this hinge not only was a hinge, but was so good a spring, that whenever the door was opened it would shut itself immediately: and when shut, it fitted so nicely that it was very difficult to see the place of joining." "Well, Uncle Philip, this is most wonderful! But will not the hinge wear out at last?" "Wonderful as it is, boys, it is all true. As to its wearing out, I cannot tell you; but I know that a gentleman who had one, said that his friends were very anxious to see it; and there were so many of them, that he had to open the door and let it shut itself many hundreds of times to satisfy them; and it did not hurt the spring at all." "Uncle Philip, we shall not kill the poor spiders any more."