At a meeting of the Society of Florists in Cincinnati one of the speakers is reported to have said, when the subject of plant enemies was under consideration, " That it is customary to abuse and misuse the weak. This is the case with that small but beautiful insect, the red spider. Like other spiders it is carnivorous and never ate a plant in its life. Microscopic insects come to live upon the plants, and the red spider to live upon them. It is a friend, not a foe".

This statement we regard as made up of fact and fiction in about equal parts. It is true that the spider is carnivorous and is in no way dependent upon plant food for subsistence; but the creature referred to here is not a spider, but an Acarus or mite, and lives exclusively upon vegetable products. In zoological classification they both belong to the class Arachnida, but the mite is in the order Trachearia, the spider in that of Pulmonaria. The function of breathing in the two orders is different. In the mite it is performed by air tubes distributed through the body, whilst in the spider the air is admitted by spiricles situated on the abdomen, and which are lined by a membrane plaited into numerous folds, which resemble gills. On these characters is founded the subdivision of the class into pulmonary and tracheary Arachnidia.

But apart from all technicalities any one with a good pocket lens might satisfy himself that the pests of gardeners differ in important particulars from the spider. The head and breast, or thorax, of the spider is connected with the abdomen by a slender cord, as in insects. It has eight eyes, and the same number of legs, besides two short armlike projections, or palpi, with which to catch and to hold its prey. The body of the mite is not so divided; is somewhat oval in form and tapering to the head, which is terminated by a syphon or sucker, with which to extract the juices of plants. It has six legs, but by undergoing a transformation similar to insects an extra pair is not unfrequently acquired. The body is transparent, with dark vein-like ramifications along the back which we take to be the trachea. The aged females only are red, which may have given rise to the popular name by which they are known. They spin webs, but not so artistically as spiders do, as they seem chiefly designed for nests, or, when the workers are unmolested, convenient residences for large communities; whereas the web of the spider is not only a snug retreat in times of danger, but a base from which to operate against enemies as well as a snare to entrap unwary flies or other creatures upon which it feeds.

New Haven, Conn., Dec. 1st, 1885.