TERRORS OF A SPIDER FIGHT.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 3439, 21 May 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

TERRORS OF A SPIDER FIGHT.

Manchester City Mews. I once had ;> spider pet of a hind the books enabled me to identify. He was a fine, big fellow. L caught him in the garden, carried him home, and for nearly two months he and I took a close interest in each other, he for the flies 1 introduced to him,'and I for the amusement ha introduced to me. I kept him in a milliner's box, letting him out when I visited him, specially delighting myself with allowing him to drop from one hand by his finespun thread, and then either catching him in the other or gently compelling bioi to climb back again by apparently eating his own ladder.

One day I captured another spider of the same species. I kept him for a few days in a separate box, and then, with the kindly idea of companionship, I introduced him to ‘’Tiger.” I have seen dogs fight; I have seen chanticleer fight and slay his man; I have seen rams fight till, \vith his skull crushed in, one lay dead at the foot of the other; I have seen men fight; I have seen women fight—at least they once were women—till they became a confusion of blood and hair and shredded garments: bufi’the fullest sense I ever realised of mad, murderous passion lot ungovernably loose, centred in one destroy, ing aim and summoning every physical energy to its devilish service, I realised when those two spiders rushed to mortal combat. I stood in boyish terror as their tangled legs dropped off, tom by mutual rage: and as, with vicious dexterity they struck each other with their poisoned fangs, using for their own destruction the weapons and appliances with which Nature has provided them for the capture and slaughter of their prey, I visibly turned ffysgOf wa§ the yiotor j but even while syith brutal wrath, all mangled as he was, he hit and spurned bis 'dead and limbless foe, be was seized with’ symptoms I took to. be paralytic, apd in ,q minute c.f two | helped him to his death. And this fearless gladiator was afraid of, X remember, and never would tackle, a big blue-bottle fly. What is courage ?