It pursues its gay measure, and thinks nothing of the sufferer. The fatal inquiry, "Shall I dine?" returns, and lacerates its bowels. Then comes the more ominous reflection: "If I do not dine to-day, no more thread! And far less, then, may I hope to dine to-morrow!" From all this results a suffering, restless, but prodigiously wary and attentive being, which detects not only the slightest contact, but the slightest noise. The spider is only too sensitive. A very little disturbance seems to overthrow its self-control. It apparently faints; you see it suddenly fall from its position, struck down by fear. * * * * * This sensitiveness, as you will readily believe, is especially displayed in the spider's maternal condition. However miserable and avaricious in its nature, it is tender, liberal, and generous towards its young. While the birds of prey--the winged hunters which have so many resources--drive away their young at a very early age, look upon them as greedy competitors, and force them by blows of their beaks to dwell afar from the domain which they reserve as their own, the spider is not contented with carrying its eggs in the cocoon, but, in certain species, nourishes them when living and greedy, guards them, bears them on its back; or else she makes them walk, holding them by a thread; if danger threatens, she draws in the thread, they leap upon her, and she saves them. If she cannot do so, she will perish. Some there are which, rather than abandon their offspring, will suffer themselves to be swallowed up in the gulf of the ant-lion. Others, of a slow species, which, when unable to save them, make no effort to escape, but allow themselves to be captured also. Their nests are frequently masterpieces. At Interlaken, in Switzerland, I have admired their long soft tubes, warm in the interior, and well-lined,--externally, disguised with much skill by an artistic pell-mell of small bits of leaf, tiny twigs, and fragments of gray plaster, so as to melt perfectly into the colour of the wall supporting them. But this was nothing in comparison with a work of art which I have here at Fontainebleau.