SPIDERS NOT INSECTS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3957, 26 March 1884, Page 4

SPIDERS NOT INSECTS.

Now, spiders aro not insects, as most peoplo think. Thero is prceiaoly tho samo relationship botwoen a spider and an insect that thore fs bctAvecn a cow and a codfish. The coav and tho fish are both vertebrates, and tho spider and tho .insect are both an : nulatos, but here the resomblanco ceases. In ovory other point of struotnro they differ Avidoiy'from each other. Tlie spider has eight logs whereas an. insect cannot havo moro than six. The nervous system is.constructed on a totally different principle, and so are ,tho circulation and respiration. The pyes. are different, the insoot-having many compound eyes, and tho spider never having more than eight eyes, and all of them simple. Then,-a spider has no separate head, as is tho case with insects, tho head and thorax being fused together. Neither does tho spider pass through the series, of development which wo call "transformation. When the yonng spider is hatched it is a spider, and retains tho samo shape through its Avholo life. Again, no insect that is at present' known can spin silken threads. Tako tho silkworm as a familiar example. Tho silk is spun by tho caterpillar and not by the moth. Now, the spider can produce threads throughout the whole of its life. It possesses, moreover, the faculty of producing different kinds of silk, according to tho object for which it is needed.—Rev. J. G. Wood in Good Words.