These little mites breed with astonishing rapidity, so that
great care should be exercised in at once stopping an attack. A lady
friend of mine had some castor oil plants growing in pots in a window
which were badly attacked, and found that some lady-birds soon made
short work of the mites and cleared the plants. The red spider lays
its eggs among the threads of the web which it weaves over the under
sides of the leaves; the eggs are round and white; the young spiders
are hatched in about a week, and they very much resemble their parents
in general appearance, but they have only three pairs of legs instead
of four at first, and they do not acquire the fourth pair until they
have changed their skins several times; they are, of course, much
smaller in size, but are, however, in proportion just as destructive
as the older ones. They obtain the juices of the leaves by eating
through the skin with their mandibles, and then thrusting in their
probosces or suckers (Fig. 2), through which they draw out the juices.
These little creatures are so transparent, that it is very difficult
to make out all the details of their mouths accurately. The females
are very fertile, and breed with great rapidity under favorable
circumstances all the year round.
The red spiders, as I have already stated, are not real spiders, but
belong to the family Acarina or mites, a family included in the same
class (the arachnida) as the true spiders, from which they may be
easily distinguished by the want of any apparent division between the
head and thorax and body; in the true spiders the head and thorax are
united together and form one piece, to which the body is joined by a
slender waist.
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