Is a spider an insect? If you have thought so, you have been mistaken. Insects are made up of three distinct parts; they always have six legs, and they breathe through air-tubes along the sides of their bodies.

Spiders breathe through lungs as we do. Their bodies are in two sections, and instead of six legs they have eight. They have six or eight eyes on the top of the head. The spider spins from her body a silk so fine that we can scarcely see it, of which she makes a web as carefully measured as if she had a foot rule. In fact, she has a useful pair of compasses in the shape of claws at the ends of her fore legs.

The spider is one of the most industrious, cleanly, and patient workers in the world. More than six hundred separate strands go to make one slender thread of her web. She can choose, moreover, whether she will spin a fine or coarse, a dry or spangled thread for the particular work she has in hand.

In an hour a spider will make a web more than half a yard across, and of a strength wonderful in proportion to its size. Steel wire of the same thickness as a spider's thread would be less than two-thirds as strong.

The spider is a devoted mother, and will die with her little ones rather than leave them. Some kinds of spiders carry their babies about with them, while others fasten their cradles to a crevice in the wall. Spiders are very useful to us in destroying the flies and troublesome insects that annoy us. Though spiders are often called cruel, they never torture their victims, but kill them at once by means of a poisonous fluid which is said to deaden pain.

One day when the Scotch king, Robert Bruce, lay sick and discouraged in a lonely shed, he watched the patient efforts of a spider to repair its web. Six times she tried to throw the frail thread from one beam to another, and six times she failed.

"Six times have I been beaten in battle," said Bruce. "I know how to pity that poor spider."

But the spider was not discouraged. A seventh time she flung her thread, and this time she succeeded in fastening it to the beam.

Bruce sprang to his feet. "I will try once more," he said, and went forth to victory. Since that day, the story goes, no member of the family of Bruce will injure a spider.