"I was going to be a father, and I wasn’t so sure I was ready to become one. I liked my peaceful house. I liked my independence. I liked living free and easy. Being a father meant settling down, being…." (Sebranek, 1998, p.1).

"This book offers you one central piece of advice: Whenever possible, think of your writing as a form of persuasion. Persuasion is traditionally considered a separate branch of writing. When you write what’s usually called a persuasion paper, you pick a controversial topic, tell your readers what side you’re on, and try to persuade them that you’re correct: the defence budget needs to be decreased, handguns should be outlawed…Persuasion is supposed to be based on different principles from those of other kinds of writings –description, narration, exposition, and so forth. It isn’t."

Tarantulas customarily live in deep cylindrical burrows, from which they emerge at dusk and into which they retire at dawn. Mature males wander about after dark in search of females and occasionally stray into houses. After mating, the males dies in a few weeks, but a female lives much longer and can mate several years in succession. In a Paris museum is a tropical specimen which is said to have been living in captivity for 25 years.

A fertilised female tarantula lays from 200 to 400 eggs at a time; thus it is possible for a single tarantula to produce several thousand young…(Schwire, 1994, p.141-142).