THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.
VOL. XVIII.—AUGUST, 1866.—NO. CVI.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Ticknor andFields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes movedto the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.
Contents
HOW MY NEW ACQUAINTANCES SPIN.
WHAT DID SHE SEE WITH?
THE MINER.
PHYSICAL HISTORY OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZONS.
A MANIAC'S CONFESSION.
THE GREAT DOCTOR.
MY FARM: A FABLE.
PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.
GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
LONDON FORTY YEARS AGO.
A YEAR IN MONTANA.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
HOW MY NEW ACQUAINTANCES SPIN.
The strictly professional man may have overcome his natural aversion tosome of the most interesting objects of his study, such as snakes, andtoads, and spiders, and vermin of all kinds; but people in general havealways required that any attempt to force such abominations upon theirnotice should be preceded by a more or less elaborate and humbleacknowledgment of their hideous aspect, their ferocious disposition,their dark and bloody deeds, and the utter impossibility of theirconducing in any way to human comfort and convenience.
But, while admitting the truth of much that has been thus urged againstspiders as a class, I must decline, or at least defer, conforming tocustom in speaking of the particular variety which we are about toconsider, and I believe that it will need only a glance at the insectand its silk, and a brief notice of its habits, to justify myindisposition to follow the usual routine.
Without apology, then, I shall endeavor to show that in the structure,the habits, the mode of growth, and, above all, in the productions ofthis spider are to be found subjects worthy the attention of every classof minds; for to the naturalist is exhibited a species which, though notabsolutely new to science, was never seen nor heard of by ProfessorAgassiz till the spring of 1865, and which is so narrowly circumscribedin its geographical distribution that, so far as I can ascertain, it wasnever observed by Hentz,—a Southern entomologist, who devoted himselfparticularly to spiders,—and is met with only upon a few low, marshyislands on the coast of South Carolina, and perhaps of other SouthernStates. Its habits, too, are so interesting, and so different in manyrespects from those recorded of other species, that the observer ofliving creatures has here an abundant opportunity, not only forin