not cherish. There is, perhaps, no nest which is easier to be seen or more accessible when discovered than that of the Hedge Sparrow, and the consequence is, that the cuckoo's egg is oftener to be found in the nest of the Hedge Sparrow than in that of any other bird. This circumstance is certainly unfortunate to the Hedge Sparrow, who is obliged to give up the whole of her nest to a supposititious offspring, and to bestow upon a single intruder all the care and attention which would otherwise have been lavished upon the five rightful occupants.

Besides the cats, rats, and weasels, there are direful feathered foes, such as the shrike, which steals away the young and carries them to its home, where it hangs them up in its natural larder, and the magpie, which will sometimes work great havoc among the young or eggs. Now and then the owl makes a meal of a young bird, as I can testify from personal experience, and the viper is always ready to glide up the stems of the shrubs amid which the bird has built, to insert its baleful head into the nest, and to swallow the callow young.

Still, as the Hedge Sparrow generally produces two broods of young in a year, and sometimes three, all her offspring are not destroyed by these foes, and she may have the satisfaction of rearing some of her own. The nest is nicely, substantially, but not elegantly made, as, indeed, might be inferred from its lowly position. Nests upon or near the ground are very seldom made with much attention to elegance of architecture, the greatest trimness of nest-building skill being displayed in those homes which are placed upon lofty branches or suspended from slender twigs. It is a rather large nest, and is made of moss, wool, hair, and similar materials. As is generally the case with the group of birds to which the Hedge Sparrow belongs, the eggs are five in number, and, on an average, three young in each brood attain maturity.

Remarkable Spider Nests in the British Museum.-Seed-nests and Leaf-nests.Nests of the TUFTED SPIDER.-Form and Coloring of the Spider.-Its curious Limbs.-Nests illustrative of the Hexagonal Principle.-Nest of the ICARIA.The Equal Pressure and Excavation Theories.-Nest of MISCHOCYTTARUS and its remarkable Form.-Nest of the RAPHIGASTER.-Summary of the Argument.The PROCESSIONARY MOTH.-Reasons for its Name.-How the Larvae march.Damage done by them to Trees.-A natural Remedy.-The CALOSOMA and its Habits. The GIPSY MOTH.-Its Ravages upon Trees and Mode of destroying it. -The Social Principle among Caterpillars.-Mr. Rennie's Experiments.-The LACKEY MOTH.-Supposed derivations of its popular Name.-The Eggs, Larvæ, and perfect Insects.-Habits of the Moth.-The BROWN-TAILED MOTH.--Locality where it is found.-Its Ravages abroad.-Nests of the ICARIA as they appear in Branches.-The APOICA: its remarkable Nests.-Moth Nests from Monte Video.

WE have already seen several nests built by SPIDERS, some of which are made in the earth, others are strictly pensile, and others may fairly come into the present group. The specimens from which the drawings were made are in the collection of the British Museum, some in the upper and others in the lower

rooms.

Of the architects, the manner in which the nests were made, and the reasons why they were so singularly constructed, I can say nothing, because no record is attached to the specimens. Still, they are so curious that they have found a place in the work, and it is to be hoped that the very fact of their publicity will induce travelers to search for more specimens and to describe their history.

Differing as they do in shape, color, and material, they have one object in common, namely, the rearing of the young. They are clearly nests in the true sense of the word, being devoted not to the parents, but to the offspring. At the upper part of the illustration may be seen a number of long, spindle-shaped bodies, suspended from a branch. These are drawn about half the full size, in order to allow other specimens to be introduced into the same illustration for the purpose of comparison. In color.they are nearly white, with a slight yellowish tinge, and are very soft and delicate of texture, so that when viewed in a good light they form a very striking group of objects.

In the opposite upper corner of the illustration may be seen a remarkable nest, which few would recognize as the work of a spider. Such, however, is the case, the creature being urged by instinct to take several concave. seed-pods, and to fix them together as seen in the drawing. The seed-pods are fastened firmly together with the silken thread of which webs are made, and in the interior the eggs are placed. The drawing is reduced about one third in proportion to the actual object. Several of these singular nests are in the collection at the British Museum.

Occupying the lower part of the illustration is seen a leaf upon. which are piled a number of fragments of leaves, so as to form a rudely conical heap. This is also the work of a spider, and is made with even more ingenuity than the two preceding specimens. In the first instance the spider has spun a hollow case of silk, similar in principle of construction, though not in form, to the spherical egg cases made by several British spiders. In the second instance the creature has chosen a number of concave seed-pods, and, by adjusting their edges together and fastening them with silk, made a hollow nest, which only requires to be lined in order to make it a fit nursery for the young. But, in the present example, the work of nest-making has been much more elaborate, for the structure has been regularly built up of a great number of pieces, each being arranged methodically upon the

other, very much as children in the streets build their oyster-shell grottoes. The labor must have been considerable, even if the spider had nothing to do but to arrange and fasten together pieces of leaves which had already been selected.

THE large, oval, cocoon-like nests which are seen in the accompanying illustration are made by the TUFTED SPIDER of the West Indies, a creature which derives its name from the remarkable tufts of stiff, bristle-like hairs which decorate the limbs. A very fine specimen of this remarkable Spider is now before me, having been taken out of its bottle with extreme difficulty, owing to the great length of the limbs, and the weight of the prolonged abdomen.

The length of the body is one inch and a half, of which measurement the abdomen alone occupies two thirds. The average circumference of the abdomen is five sixths of an inch; and, as it

varies very little throughout its entire length, that portion of the body is very solid and heavy. The color is deep chocolate-brown, curiously marked with circular dots of bright yellow, and farther diversified with stripes of the same color, especially over the fore part of the abdomen. Two bold yellow bars are also drawn transversely across the under surface of the abdomen. The thorax is deep brown, and clothed with short hairs of grayish-yellow, set so densely that the dark color of the thorax can not be seen without close inspection. There are, however, three black squared spots on each side, and a black spot occupies the centre. The animal is armed with a formidable pair of poison-jaws, of a deep shining black, at the ends of which the curved fangs are bent inward like the venomous teeth of the rattlesnake. On the front of the thorax, and looking directly forward, are the eight eyes, the four smallest being arranged closely together in the centre, in the form of a square, and the four largest being set on bold prominences so as to form a large oblong, in the centre of which is the square.

The limbs are of considerable length. The first pair of legs, which are the longest, measure two inches and a half in length, and the expanded second pair measure four inches and a half. The most remarkable point about the spider is the peculiarity from which it derives its name. The first, second, and fourth pairs of legs are adorned with dense hairy tufts, the first pair having two tufts each, and the others only one. The third pair of legs are much shorter and smaller than the others, and are destitute of tufts. As the legs themselves are bright yellow-brown and the tufts are deep black, the contrast of color is very bold and agreeable to the eye. The entomological reader may perhaps remember that social exotic beetles are also decorated with tufts upon their antennæ and limbs. Of the curious spherical spidernests, with their black cross-bars, nothing is known except the mere fact of their existence. They are about as large as full-sized black currants.

In the following illustration three most remarkable nests are given, all of them the work of hymenopterous insects, and all serving in some degree to illustrate the hexagonal system of cellbuilding, so common among the Hymenoptera.

Of these, perhaps, the central figure is the most interesting, because it entirely sets at rest a question which is periodically