According to the Country Gentleman, at the meeting of the Society of American Florists, " C. L. Allen, who has had much successful experience in the cultivation of ornamental plants, said that the red spider is a small and beautiful insect, and as it is customary with many to abuse and misuse the weak, this insect has come in for its full share. Like other spiders, this is carnivorous, and never ate a plant in its life, and he regarded it as a friend and not a foe. A healthy condition of plants from care in watering, repels the minute destroyers the red spider feeds on, and thus drives it away".

Surely Mr. Allen has been mis-reported. The cheese mite is "like other spiders" in being one of the web-weavers or arachnideae, but surely it eats cheese and is not carnivorous.