Many such creatures, rolled up just as the wood-louse curls itself, in tight balls, have been found in a fossil state; and there is a little petrified crustacean with wonderful eyes, which has been found in the slate quarries of South Wales. It is called the Trilobite, because it is composed of three lobes or divisions, and is an animal of the same kind as the lobster. Be sure you look for it, if you are fossil-hunting in the Museum, for it is a most interesting specimen, and has been found in rocks deep down in the earth's crust. Now, next to this Crab and Lobster family, come that of the Spiders, and then that of the Insects. Perhaps you will say, "But what are spiders, if they are not insects?" I know I used to think they were, until I found that no creature can be reckoned one of that large family unless it has _six legs_--not even one more or one less. Now, a spider has eight legs, and it has no wings, while all true insects have either wings, or what seems to be the beginning of wings: also although some spiders have as many as eight eyes, they are all "simple," while the eyes of insects are "compound"; that is, great numbers are massed together at each side of the head, like the "facets," or little faces, of a precious stone. As insects have fixed eyes, which cannot move, they would be very badly off without these many points of view. I wonder whether you ever had a good look at a spider, or whether you learnt when you were almost a baby to think it a "horrid creature"; so that now, when you might be watching it at its work, your first notion is to get out of its way as fast as possible. Some creatures are really harmful, and it is right to keep out of their way, but it is never right to despise a single thing which God has made, and when we think that the spider is one of His creatures, one which He calls "exceeding wise," it does indeed seem a pity not to learn something about it; and the best way to learn about spiders, as well as all the rest of the animals, is not only to read about them--though that is a very great help to begin with--but to observe and study their habits for ourselves. Ernest is fond of repeating a poem about King Robert the Bruce; how, as he noticed a spider six times fail to climb up its slender thread, but succeed at the seventh attempt, he took courage to make one more effort for his lost kingdom, and succeeded. This was long, long ago; but Kings and Commons have yet their tugs of war; and for old and young it is still all honour to those who "Try, try, try till they win, Brave with the thought that despair is a sin-- Who fights on God's side is sure to win."