He Changed His Coat

HE CHANGED HIS COAT

A GRAY SPIDER IS ASSISTED BY A FRIEND.

Who Helps Relieve Him of Troublesome Pantaloons.—A True Story From Nature.

"Spider Story" number two. Another Ann Arbor spider too. This story too is just as true, for the writer the one who spied her, or rather them for there were two, and now we'll go on without more ado.

Do spiders have a language? If no how can they communicate with each other even to tell what is going to happen and ask sympathy and help One fine October morning said our informant, I stopped at the head of the stairs to look through the south window, where everything was glorified by the flood of sunlight, when my attention was called to a pair of large gray spiders standing on the outside ledge of the widow which was closed They stood several inches apart facing each other. They were the kind that have no web - but have short legs and jump at their pleasure in all directions. I expected to see a fight every minute, and made up my mind to see it to the bitter end. So I stood and stood, and so did they, perfectly motionless for a long, long time. Finally one of them began a kind of desperate struggle with itself, still neither leaving its chosen spot. After another long time the watcher in waiting crept forward to the other and when he got near enough for the expected fight to begin he quietly and gently put his claws, or toes, or whatever they are, on the tips of the toes of the sufferer's pantaloons, so to speak, and held them down while the wearer of the "pants" "humped himself" until the back seam of his coat burst open and he then pulled his legs out of his pantaloons and stepped like a free, new man, leaving his old snit caught on a tendril of a vine where it was allowed to flutter till spring. I had never heard of such a thing and called to a friend down stairs to come and see the show, but she was absorbed in the morning paper and answered that she had seen them before.

A funny part was that the spider looked exactly as he did before the operation, so I suppose he had simply outgrown his short clothes. The kind and tender treatment of the patient watcher was so human. Anyway I would not have missed the sight for anything, and how much better than the prize fight I had expected.