Hunters with eight legs [antikvár]

VOne summer day David said to his Uncle Tom, "I wish I could visit Africa and see lions and tigers hunting.""I cannot take you to Africa," answered his uncle, "but I can show you a fierce hunter. . . the spider.""But a spider is an insect!""No, David. Spiders hunt insects but they themselves belong to a group of creatures called Arachnida and are closely related to scorpions."Spiders have eight legs but insects have only six, and their young hatch as spiders whereas insects hatch as grubs."The head and chest of the spider are in one piece and are separated from the rest of the body by a narrow waist. On the abdomen is the spinneret, a tiny lump from which comes the silk to make the web. Each leg has seven joints and can move and bend in any direction."There are a vast number of spiders in the world and many different kinds. Some are tiny like the Money Spider; some, like the Bird-catching Spider, are large-as much as two inches long.""But," sighed David, "they are not very exciting."Uncle Tom smiled. "In the house, in the fields, and in the woods, creatures prey on each other just as fiercely as the beasts in the