THE spiders, large Epeiridae, which produce silk, inhabit the hottest countries. They are represented in our latitudes by a few species of inferior size, the most common of which, the Epeira diadema, is very numerous in the gardens in autumn, and may be remarked by the regularly shaped webs which it weaves among the bushes. These delicate gauzes, however, give only an imperfect idea of the webs that are woven by the larger spiders of tropical regions. In India, the Sunda Islands, Madagascar, Reunion, and Mauritius, the Epeira construct webs of extraordinary dimensions, and the traveler has frequent cause to admire the threads which he finds strung across the water-courses and fastened on the opposite side. The threads of these spiders are of different167kinds, and proceed from different glands. The silk which is wrapped around the cocoons is not the same that is spun in the webs, and may be of an entirely different color. The silks of various Epeira were brought to Europe by travelers in the seventeenth century, and excited admiration by their firmness and brilliancy. Experiments were tried in making cloth and gloves from them, but they were found to have no powers of endurance. Louis XIV., wishing to encourage a new art, had a coat made of the silk, but was glad to take it off the first day, for it suffered a rent every time he moved. These efforts appear to have been made with the silk of the webs. That unrolled from the cocoons proved to be the stronger. M. Bon, in 1709, carded from the cocoons a silk which he described as much finer and stronger than ordinary silk, and which, he claimed, was fitted to make any kind of fabrics. In Spain, Raymondo Maria de Tremezer, between 1777 and 1791, made several articles as bright and fine as silk, from the threads of the Epeira diadema. Mr. Rolt, an English merchant, was able to exhibit to the Society of Arts a specimen thread twenty thousand feet long, that had been spun by twenty-two spiders in less than two hours, and which was five times as fine as the thread of the silkworm. Alcide d'Orbigny asserted that he had garments, able to sustain considerable wear, made in South America from spider's silk.—Popular Science Monthly.