set about repairing the breaks in the net; but this, it seems, could not be accomplished, therefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new one begun.

I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider could furnish; therefore I destroyed this, and the insect set about another. When I destroyed the other also, its whole stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours together, but cautiously watching all the time; when a fly happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at once, and often seize its prey.

Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it could not make a web of its own. It made an attack upon a neighboring web with great vigor, and at first was as vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, in this manner it continued to lay siege to another's web for three days, and at length having killed the defendant, actually took possession.

When smaller flies happen to fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure of them; for should it immediately approach, the terror of its appearance might give the captive strength sufficient to get loose; its habit then is to wait patiently, till, by useless struggles, the captive has wasted all its strength, and then it becomes a certain and easy conquest.

The insect I am now describing lived three years; every year it changed its skin and got a new set of legs. I have sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three days. At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but at last it became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand, and upon my touching any part of the web, would

immediately leave its hole, prepared either for defer an attack.

To complete this description it may be observed tha male spiders are much smaller than the female. Whe latter come to lay, they spread a part of their web the eggs, and then roll them up carefully, as we ro things in a cloth, and thus hatch them in their hole disturbed, they never attempt to escape without car their young brood in their forceps away with them, thus frequently are sacrificed to their parental affection

As soon as ever the young ones leave their artificial ering they begin to spin, and almost sensibly seem to bigger. If they have the good fortune, when but a day to catch a fly, they begin to eat with good appetites; they live sometimes three or four days without any su nance, and continue to grow larger very rapidly.

As they grow old, however, they do not continue to crease in size. Their legs, only, grow longer. And w a spider becomes entirely stiff with age, and unable to s its prey, it dies at length of hunger.

દ

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

6

VIII. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.1

BY CHARLES WOLFE.2

OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

NOT

As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin inclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head
And we far away on the billow.

1 SIR JOHN MOORE (1761-1809) was a British general who was kille in the Peninsula wars of Napoleon, and was buried at night in the citad at Corunna, where he had died. Hence the poem. A monument wa erected to his memory in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

2 CHARLES WOLFE (1761-1823) was an Irish clergyman, who is be

known by his noon " The Burial of Sir John Moore "

68

STEPPING STONES TO LITERATURE.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;

But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

IX. OUR SOCIETY.

BY MRS. ELIZABETH C. S. GASKELL.1

N the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Am

are women. If a married couple come to settle in th town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is eithe fairly frightened to death by being the only man in th Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by bein with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in busines all the week in the great neighboring commercial town o Drumble, distant only twenty miles on the railroad. I short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.

1 MRS. ELIZABETH CLEGHORN STEVENSON GASKELL (1810-1865) was a noted English novelist. Some of her stories contain vivid pictures of the life and experiences of the manufacturing classes. The two extracts

What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers, without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maidservants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress, ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient.

- the

"A man," as one of them observed to me once, "is so in the way in the house!" Although the ladies of Cranford. know all each other's proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but somehow good will reigns among them to a considerable degree.

I imagine that a few of the gentle folks of Cranford were poor, and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us spoke of money, because that savored of commerce and trade, and, though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic.

I never shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke