The Project Gutenberg Book of The Life of the Spider, by J. Henri Fabre

Published：2026-07-30 03:45:55 Source: veterinarian playsets for 11 year olds Author: Easter Toys

THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER

CHAPTER I: THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA

The microscope kits for 3 year olds under 100 dollarsSpider has a bad name: to most of us, she represents an odious,noxious animal, which every one hastens to crush under foot. Againstthis summary verdict the observer sets the beast’s industry, itstalent as a weaver, its wiliness in the chase, its tragic nuptials andother characteristics of great interest. Yes, the Spider is wellworth studying, apart from any scientific reasons; but she is said tobe poisonous and that is her crime and the primary cause of the repugnancewherewith she inspires us. Poisonous, I agree, if by that we understandthat the animal is armed with two fangs which cause the immediate deathof the little victims which it catches; but there is a wide differencebetween killing a Midge and harming a man. However immediate inits effects upon the insect entangled in the fatal web, the Spider’spoison is not serious for us and causes less inconvenience than a Gnat-bite.That, at least, is what we can safely say as regards the great majorityof the Spiders of our regions.

Nevertheless, a few are to be feared; and foremost among these isthe Malmignatte, the terror of the Corsican peasantry. I haveseen her settle in the furrows, lay out her web and rush boldly at insectslarger than herself; I have admired her garb of black velvet speckledwith carmine-red; above all, I have heard most disquieting stories toldabout her. Around Ajaccio and Bonifacio, her bite is reputed verydangerous, sometimes mortal. The countryman declares this fora fact and the doctor does not always dare deny it. In the neighbourhoodof Pujaud, not far from Avignon, the harvesters speak with dread ofTheridion lugubre, { 1}first observed by Léon Dufour in the Catalonian mountains; accordingto them, her bite would lead to serious accidents. The Italianshave bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsionsand frenzied dances in the person stung by her. To cope with ‘tarantism,’the name given to the disease that follows on the bite of the ItalianSpider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy,so they tell us. Special tunes have been noted, those quickestto afford relief. There is medical choreography, medical music.And have we not the tarantella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathedto us perhaps by the healing art of the Calabrian peasant?

Must we take these queer things seriously or laugh at them?From the little that I have seen, I hesitate to pronounce an opinion.Nothing tells us that the bite of the Tarantula may not provoke, inweak and very impressionable people, a nervous disorder which musicwill relieve; nothing tells us that a profuse perspiration, resultingfrom a very energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfortby diminishing the cause of the ailment. So far from laughing,I reflect and enquire, when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of hisTarantula, the Pujaud reaper of his Theridion lugubre, the Corsicanhusbandman of his Malmignatte. Those Spiders might easily deserve,at least partly, their terrible reputation.

The most powerful Spider in my district, the Black-bellied Tarantula,will presently give us something to think about, in this connection.It is not my business to discuss a medical point, I interest myselfespecially in matters of instinct; but, as the poison-fangs play a leadingpart in the huntress’ manoeuvres of war, I shall speak of theireffects by the way. The habits of the Tarantula, her ambushes,her artifices, her methods of killing her prey: these constitute mysubject. I will preface it with an account by Léon Dufour,{ 2} one of those accountsin which I used to delight and which did much to bring me into closertouch with the insect. The Wizard of the Landes tells us of theordinary Tarantula, that of the Calabrias, observed by him in Spain:

‘Lycosa tarantulaby preference inhabitsopen places, dry, arid, uncultivated places, exposed to the sun.She lives generally—at least when full-grown—in undergroundpassages, regular burrows, which she digs for herself. These burrowsare cylindrical; they are often an inch in diameter and run into theground to a depth of more than a foot; but they are not perpendicular.The inhabitant of this gut proves that she is at the same time a skilfulhunter and an able engineer. It was a question for her not onlyof constructing a deep retreat that could hide her from the pursuitof her foes: she also had to set up her observatory whence to watchfor her prey and dart out upon it. The Tarantula provides forevery contingency: the underground passage, in fact, begins by beingvertical, but, at four or five inches from the surface, it bends atan obtuse angle, forms a horizontal turning and then becomes perpendicularonce more. It is at the elbow of this tunnel that the Tarantulaposts herself as a vigilant sentry and does not for a moment lose sightof the door of her dwelling; it was there that, at the period when Iwas hunting her, I used to see those eyes gleaming like diamonds, brightas a cat’s eyes in the dark.

‘The outer orifice of the Tarantula’s burrow is usuallysurmounted by a shaft constructed throughout by herself. It isa genuine work of architecture, standing as much as an inch above theground and sometimes two inches in diameter, so that it is wider thanthe burrow itself. This last circumstance, which seems to havebeen calculated by the industrious Spider, lends itself admirably tothe necessary extension of the legs at the moment when the prey is tobe seized. The shaft is composed mainly of bits of dry wood joinedby a little clay and so artistically laid, one above the other, thatthey form the scaffolding of a straight column, the inside of whichis a hollow cylinder. The solidity of this tubular building, ofthis outwork, is ensured above all by the fact that it is lined, upholsteredwithin, with a texture woven by the Lycosa’s { 3}spinnerets and continued throughout the interior of the burrow.It is easy to imagine how useful this cleverly-manufactured lining mustbe for preventing landslip or warping, for maintaining cleanliness andfor helping her claws to scale the fortress.

‘I hinted that this outwork of the burrow was not there invariably;as a matter of fact, I have often come across Tarantulas’ holeswithout a trace of it, perhaps because it had been accidentally destroyedby the weather, or because the Lycosa may not always light upon theproper building-materials, or, lastly, because architectural talentis possibly declared only in individuals that have reached the finalstage, the period of perfection of their physical and intellectual development.

‘One thing is certain, that I have had numerous opportunitiesof seeing these shafts, these out-works of the Tarantula’s abode;they remind me, on a larger scale, of the tubes of certain Caddis-worms.The Arachnid had more than one object in view in constructing them:she shelters her retreat from the floods; she protects it from the fallof foreign bodies which, swept by the wind, might end by obstructingit; lastly, she uses it as a snare by offering the Flies and other insectswhereon she feeds a projecting point to settle on. Who shall tellus all the wiles employed by this clever and daring huntress?

‘Let us now say something about my rather diverting Tarantula-hunts.The best season for them is the months of May and June. The firsttime that I lighted on this Spider’s burrows and discovered thatthey were inhabited by seeing her come to a point on the first floorof her dwelling—the elbow which I have mentioned—I thoughtthat I must attack her by main force and pursue her relentlessly inorder to capture her; I spent whole hours in opening up the trench witha knife a foot long by two inches wide, without meeting the Tarantula.I renewed the operation in other burrows, always with the same wantof success; I really wanted a pickaxe to achieve my object, but I wastoo far from any kind of house. I was obliged to change my planof attack and I resorted to craft. Necessity, they say, is themother of invention.

‘It occurred to me to take a stalk, topped with its spikelet,by way of a bait, and to rub and move it gently at the orifice of theburrow. I soon saw that the Lycosa’s attention and desireswere roused. Attracted by the bait, she came with measured stepstowards the spikelet. I withdrew it in good time a little outsidethe hole, so as not to leave the animal time for reflexion; and theSpider suddenly, with a rush, darted out of her dwelling, of which Ihastened to close the entrance. The Tarantula, bewildered by herunaccustomed liberty, was very awkward in evading my attempts at capture;and I compelled her to enter a paper bag, which I closed without delay.

‘Sometimes, suspecting the trap, or perhaps less pressed byhunger, she would remain coy and motionless, at a slight distance fromthe threshold, which she did not think it opportune to cross.Her patience outlasted mine. In that case, I employed the followingtactics: after making sure of the Lycosa’s position and the directionof the tunnel, I drove a knife into it on the slant, so as to take theanimal in the rear and cut off its retreat by stopping up the burrow.I seldom failed in my attempt, especially in soil that was not stony.In these critical circumstances, either the Tarantula took fright anddeserted her lair for the open, or else she stubbornly remained withher back to the blade. I would then give a sudden jerk to theknife, which flung both the earth and the Lycosa to a distance, enablingme to capture her. By employing this hunting-method, I sometimescaught as many as fifteen Tarantulae within the space of an hour.

‘In a few cases, in which the Tarantula was under no misapprehensionas to the trap which I was setting for her, I was not a little surprised,when I pushed the stalk far enough down to twist it round her hiding-place,to see her play with the spikelet more or less contemptuously and pushit away with her legs, without troubling to retreat to the back of herlair.

‘The Apulian peasants, according to Baglivi’s { 4}account, also hunt the Tarantula by imitating the humming of an insectwith an oat-stalk at the entrance to her burrow. I quote the passage:

‘“Ruricolæ nostri quando eas captare volunt,ad illorum latibula accedunt, tenuisque avenacæ fistulæsonum, apum murmuri non absimilem, modulantur. Quo audito, feroxexit Tarentula ut muscas vel alia hujus modi insecta, quorum murmuresse putat, captat; captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore.”{ 5}

‘The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight, especially whenwe are filled with the idea that her bite is dangerous, so fierce inappearance, is nevertheless quite easy to tame, as I have often foundby experiment.

‘On the 7th of May 1812, while at Valencia, in Spain, I caughta fair-sized male Tarantula, without hurting him, and imprisoned himin a glass jar, with a paper cover in which I cut a trap-door.At the bottom of the jar I put a paper bag, to serve as his habitualresidence. I placed the jar on a table in my bedroom, so as tohave him under frequent observation. He soon grew accustomed tocaptivity and ended by becoming so familiar that he would come and takefrom my fingers the live Fly which I gave him. After killing hisvictim with the fangs of his mandibles, he was not satisfied, like mostSpiders, to suck her head: he chewed her whole body, shoving it piecemealinto his mouth with his palpi, after which he threw up the masticatedteguments and swept them away from his lodging.

‘Having finished his meal, he nearly always made his toilet,which consisted in brushing his palpi and mandibles, both inside andout, with his front tarsi. After that, he resumed his air of motionlessgravity. The evening and the night were his time for taking hiswalks abroad. I often heard him scratching the paper of the bag.These habits confirm the opinion, which I have already expressed elsewhere,that most Spiders have the faculty of seeing by day and night, likecats.

‘On the 28th of June, my Tarantula cast his skin. Itwas his last moult and did not perceptibly alter either the colour ofhis attire or the dimensions of his body. On the 14th of July,I had to leave Valencia; and I stayed away until the 23rd. Duringthis time, the Tarantula fasted; I found him looking quite well on myreturn. On the 20th of August, I again left for a nine days’absence, which my prisoner bore without food and without detriment tohis health. On the 1st of October, I once more deserted the Tarantula,leaving him without provisions. On the 21st, I was fifty milesfrom Valencia and, as I intended to remain there, I sent a servant tofetch him. I was sorry to learn that he was not found in the jar,and I never heard what became of him.

‘I will end my observations on the Tarantulae with a shortdescription of a curious fight between those animals. One day,when I had had a successful hunt after these Lycosae, I picked out twofull-grown and very powerful males and brought them together in a widejar, in order to enjoy the sight of a combat to the death. Afterwalking round the arena several times, to try and avoid each other,they were not slow in placing themselves in a warlike attitude, as thoughat a given signal. I saw them, to my surprise, take their distancesand sit up solemnly on their hind-legs, so as mutually to present theshield of their chests to each other. After watching them faceto face like that for two minutes, during which they had doubtless provokedeach other by glances that escaped my own, I saw them fling themselvesupon each other at the same time, twisting their legs round each otherand obstinately struggling to bite each other with the fangs of themandibles. Whether from fatigue or from convention, the combatwas suspended; there was a few seconds’ truce; and each athletemoved away and resumed his threatening posture. This circumstancereminded me that, in the strange fights between cats, there are alsosuspensions of hostilities. But the contest was soon renewed betweenmy two Tarantulae with increased fierceness. One of them, afterholding victory in the balance for a while, was at last thrown and receiveda mortal wound in the head. He became the prey of the conqueror,who tore open his skull and devoured it. After this curious duel,I kept the victorious Tarantula alive for several weeks.’

My district does not boast the ordinary Tarantula, the Spider whosehabits have been described above by the Wizard of the Landes; but itpossesses an equivalent in the shape of the Black-bellied Tarantula,or Narbonne Lycosa, half the size of the other, clad in black velveton the lower surface, especially under the belly, with brown chevronson the abdomen and grey and white rings around the legs. Her favouritehome is the dry, pebbly ground, covered with sun-scorched thyme.In my harmas{ 6}laboratory there are quite twenty of this Spider’s burrows.Rarely do I pass by one of these haunts without giving a glance downthe pit where gleam, like diamonds, the four great eyes, the four telescopes,of the hermit. The four others, which are much smaller, are notvisible at that depth.

Would I have greater riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards frommy house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, to-day adreary solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits fromstone to stone. The love of lucre has laid waste the land.Because wine paid handsomely, they pulled up the forest to plant thevine. Then came the Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished and theonce green table-land is now no more than a desolate stretch where afew tufts of hardy grasses sprout among the pebbles. This waste-landis the Lycosa’s paradise: in an hour’s time, if need were,I should discover a hundred burrows within a limited range.

These dwellings are pits about a foot deep, perpendicular at firstand then bent elbow-wise. The average diameter is an inch.On the edge of the hole stands a kerb, formed of straw, bits and scrapsof all sorts and even small pebbles, the size of a hazel-nut.The whole is kept in place and cemented with silk. Often, theSpider confines herself to drawing together the dry blades of the nearestgrass, which she ties down with the straps from her spinnerets, withoutremoving the blades from the stems; often, also, she rejects this scaffoldingin favour of a masonry constructed of small stones. The natureof the kerb is decided by the nature of the materials within the Lycosa’sreach, in the close neighbourhood of the building-yard. Thereis no selection: everything meets with approval, provided that it benear at hand.

Economy of time, therefore, causes the defensive wall to vary greatlyas regards its constituent elements. The height varies also.One enclosure is a turret an inch high; another amounts to a mere rim.All have their parts bound firmly together with silk; and all have thesame width as the subterranean channel, of which they are the extension.There is here no difference in diameter between the underground manorand its outwork, nor do we behold, at the opening, the platform whichthe turret leaves to give free play to the Italian Tarantula’slegs. The Black-bellied Tarantula’s work takes the formof a well surmounted by its kerb.

When the soil is earthy and homogeneous, the architectural type isfree from obstructions and the Spider’s dwelling is a cylindricaltube; but, when the site is pebbly, the shape is modified accordingto the exigencies of the digging. In the second case, the lairis often a rough, winding cave, at intervals along whose inner wallstick blocks of stone avoided in the process of excavation. Whetherregular or irregular, the house is plastered to a certain depth witha coat of silk, which prevents earth-slips and facilitates scaling whena prompt exit is required.

Baglivi, in his unsophisticated Latin, teaches us how to catch theTarantula. I became his rusticus insidiator; I waveda spikelet at the entrance of the burrow to imitate the humming of aBee and attract the attention of the Lycosa, who rushes out, thinkingthat she is capturing a prey. This method did not succeed withme. The Spider, it is true, leaves her remote apartments and comesa little way up the vertical tube to enquire into the sounds at herdoor; but the wily animal soon scents a trap; it remains motionlessat mid-height and, at the least alarm, goes down again to the branchgallery, where it is invisible.

Léon Dufour’s appears to me a better method if it wereonly practicable in the conditions wherein I find myself. To drivea knife quickly into the ground, across the burrow, so as to cut offthe Tarantula’s retreat when she is attracted by the spikeletand standing on the upper floor, would be a manoeuvre certain of success,if the soil were favourable. Unfortunately, this is not so inmy case: you might as well try to dig a knife into a block of tufa.

Other stratagems become necessary. Here are two which weresuccessful: I recommend them to future Tarantula-hunters. I insertinto the burrow, as far down as I can, a stalk with a fleshy spikelet,which the Spider can bite into. I move and turn and twist my bait.The Tarantula, when touched by the intruding body, contemplates self-defenceand bites the spikelet. A slight resistance informs my fingersthat the animal has fallen into the trap and seized the tip of the stalkin its fangs. I draw it to me, slowly, carefully; the Spider haulsfrom below, planting her legs against the wall. It comes, it rises.I hide as best I may, when the Spider enters the perpendicular tunnel:if she saw me, she would let go the bait and slip down again.I thus bring her, by degrees, to the orifice. This is the difficultmoment. If I continue the gentle movement, the Spider, feelingherself dragged out of her home, would at once run back indoors.It is impossible to get the suspicious animal out by this means.Therefore, when it appears at the level of the ground, I give a suddenpull. Surprised by this foul play, the Tarantula has no time torelease her hold; gripping the spikelet, she is thrown some inches awayfrom the burrow. Her capture now becomes an easy matter.Outside her own house, the Lycosa is timid, as though scared, and hardlycapable of running away. To push her with a straw into a paperbag is the affair of a second.

It requires some patience to bring the Tarantula who has bitten intothe insidious spikelet to the entrance of the burrow. The followingmethod is quicker: I procure a supply of live Bumble-bees. I putone into a little bottle with a mouth just wide enough to cover theopening of the burrow; and I turn the apparatus thus baited over thesaid opening. The powerful Bee at first flutters and hums abouther glass prison; then, perceiving a burrow similar to that of her family,she enters it without much hesitation. She is extremely ill-advised:while she goes down, the Spider comes up; and the meeting takes placein the perpendicular passage. For a few moments, the ear perceivesa sort of death-song: it is the humming of the Bumble-bee, protestingagainst the reception given her. This is followed by a long silence.Then I remove the bottle and dip a long-jawed forceps into the pit.I withdraw the Bumble-bee, motionless, dead, with hanging proboscis.A terrible tragedy must have happened. The Spider follows, refusingto let go so rich a booty. Game and huntress are brought to theorifice. Sometimes, mistrustful, the Lycosa goes in again; butwe have only to leave the Bumble-bee on the threshold of the door, oreven a few inches away, to see her reappear, issue from her fortressand daringly recapture her prey. This is the moment: the houseis closed with the finger, or a pebble and, as Baglivi says, ‘captaturtamen ista a rustico insidiatore,’ to which I will add, ‘adjuvanteBombo.’ { 7}

The object of these hunting methods was not exactly to obtain Tarantulae;I had not the least wish to rear the Spider in a bottle. I wasinterested in a different matter. Here, thought I, is an ardenthuntress, living solely by her trade. She does not prepare preservedfoodstuffs for her offspring; { 8}she herself feeds on the prey which she catches. She is not a‘paralyzer,’ { 9}who cleverly spares her quarry so as to leave it a glimmer of life andkeep it fresh for weeks at a time; she is a killer, who makes a mealoff her capture on the spot. With her, there is no methodicalvivisection, which destroys movement without entirely destroying life,but absolute death, as sudden as possible, which protects the assailantfrom the counter-attacks of the assailed.

Her game, moreover, is essentially bulky and not always of the mostpeaceful character. This Diana, ambushed in her tower, needs aprey worthy of her prowess. The big Grasshopper, with the powerfuljaws; the irascible Wasp; the Bee, the Bumble-bee and other wearersof poisoned daggers must fall into the ambuscade from time to time.The duel is nearly equal in point of weapons. To the venomousfangs of the Lycosa the Wasp opposes her venomous stiletto. Whichof the two bandits shall have the best of it? The struggle isa hand-to-hand one. The Tarantula has no secondary means of defence,no cord to bind her victim, no trap to subdue her. When the Epeira,or Garden Spider, sees an insect entangled in her great upright web,she hastens up and covers the captive with corded meshes and silk ribbonsby the armful, making all resistance impossible. When the preyis solidly bound, a prick is carefully administered with the poison-fangs;then the Spider retires, waiting for the death-throes to calm down,after which the huntress comes back to the game. In these conditions,there is no serious danger.

In the case of the Lycosa, the job is riskier. She has naughtto serve her but her courage and her fangs and is obliged to leap uponthe formidable prey, to master it by her dexterity, to annihilate it,in a measure, by her swift-slaying talent.

Annihilate is the word: the Bumble-bees whom I draw from the fatalhole are a sufficient proof. As soon as that shrill buzzing, whichI called the death-song, ceases, in vain I hasten to insert my forceps:I always bring out the insect dead, with slack proboscis and limp legs.Scarce a few quivers of those legs tell me that it is a quite recentcorpse. The Bumble-bee’s death is instantaneous. Eachtime that I take a fresh victim from the terrible slaughter-house, mysurprise is renewed at the sight of its sudden immobility.

Nevertheless, both animals have very nearly the same strength; forI choose my Bumble-bees from among the largest (Bombus hortorumand B. terrestris). Their weapons are almost equal: theBee’s dart can bear comparison with the Spider’s fangs;the sting of the first seems to me as formidable as the bite of thesecond. How comes it that the Tarantula always has the upper handand this moreover in a very short conflict, whence she emerges unscathed?There must certainly be some cunning strategy on her part. Subtlethough her poison may be, I cannot believe that its mere injection,at any point whatever of the victim, is enough to produce so prompta catastrophe. The ill-famed rattlesnake does not kill so quickly,takes hours to achieve that for which the Tarantula does not requirea second. We must, therefore, look for an explanation of thissudden death to the vital importance of the point attacked by the Spider,rather than to the virulence of the poison.

What is this point? It is impossible to recognize it on theBumble-bees. They enter the burrow; and the murder is committedfar from sight. Nor does the lens discover any wound upon thecorpse, so delicate are the weapons that produce it. One wouldhave to see the two adversaries engage in a direct contest. Ihave often tried to place a Tarantula and a Bumble-bee face to facein the same bottle. The two animals mutually flee each other,each being as much upset as the other at its captivity. I havekept them together for twenty-four hours, without aggressive displayon either side. Thinking more of their prison than of attackingeach other, they temporize, as though indifferent. The experimenthas always been fruitless. I have succeeded with Bees and Wasps,but the murder has been committed at night and has taught me nothing.I would find both insects, next morning, reduced to a jelly under theSpider’s mandibles. A weak prey is a mouthful which theSpider reserves for the calm of the night. A prey capable of resistanceis not attacked in captivity. The prisoner’s anxiety coolsthe hunter’s ardour.

The arena of a large bottle enables each athlete to keep out of theother’s way, respected by her adversary, who is respected in herturn. Let us reduce the lists, diminish the enclosure. Iput Bumble-bee and Tarantula into a test-tube that has only room forone at the bottom. A lively brawl ensues, without serious results.If the Bumble-bee be underneath, she lies down on her back and withher legs wards off the other as much as she can. I do not seeher draw her sting. The Spider, meanwhile, embracing the wholecircumference of the enclosure with her long legs, hoists herself alittle upon the slippery surface and removes herself as far as possiblefrom her adversary. There, motionless, she awaits events, whichare soon disturbed by the fussy Bumble-bee. Should the latteroccupy the upper position, the Tarantula protects herself by drawingup her legs, which keep the enemy at a distance. In short, savefor sharp scuffles when the two champions are in touch, nothing happensthat deserves attention. There is no duel to the death in thenarrow arena of the test-tube, any more than in the wider lists affordedby the bottle. Utterly timid once she is away from home, the Spiderobstinately refuses the battle; nor will the Bumble-bee, giddy thoughshe be, think of striking the first blow. I abandon experimentsin my study.

We must go direct to the spot and force the duel upon the Tarantula,who is full of pluck in her own stronghold. Only, instead of theBumble-bee, who enters the burrow and conceals her death from our eyes,it is necessary to substitute another adversary, less inclined to penetrateunderground. There abounds in the garden, at this moment, on theflowers of the common clary, one of the largest and most powerful Beesthat haunt my district, the Carpenter-bee (Xylocopa violacea),clad in black velvet, with wings of purple gauze. Her size, whichis nearly an inch, exceeds that of the Bumble-bee. Her sting isexcruciating and produces a swelling that long continues painful.I have very exact memories on this subject, memories that have costme dear. Here indeed is an antagonist worthy of the Tarantula,if I succeed in inducing the Spider to accept her. I place a certainnumber, one by one, in bottles small in capacity, but having a wideneck capable of surrounding the entrance to the burrow.

As the prey which I am about to offer is capable of overawing thehuntress, I select from among the Tarantulae the lustiest, the boldest,those most stimulated by hunger. The spikeleted stalk is pushedinto the burrow. When the Spider hastens up at once, when sheis of a good size, when she climbs boldly to the aperture of her dwelling,she is admitted to the tourney; otherwise, she is refused. Thebottle, baited with a Carpenter-bee, is placed upside down over thedoor of one of the elect. The Bee buzzes gravely in her glassbell; the huntress mounts from the recesses of the cave; she is on thethreshold, but inside; she looks; she waits. I also wait.The quarters, the half-hours pass: nothing. The Spider goes downagain: she has probably judged the attempt too dangerous. I moveto a second, a third, a fourth burrow: still nothing; the huntress refusesto leave her lair.

Fortune at last smiles upon my patience, which has been heavily triedby all these prudent retreats and particularly by the fierce heat ofthe dog-days. A Spider suddenly rushes from her hole: she hasbeen rendered warlike, doubtless, by prolonged abstinence. Thetragedy that happens under the cover of the bottle lasts for but thetwinkling of an eye. It is over: the sturdy Carpenter-bee is dead.Where did the murderess strike her? That is easily ascertained:the Tarantula has not let go; and her fangs are planted in the napeof the neck. The assassin has the knowledge which I suspected:she has made for the essentially vital centre, she has stung the insect’scervical ganglia with her poison-fangs. In short, she has bittenthe only point a lesion in which produces sudden death. I wasdelighted with this murderous skill, which made amends for the blisteringwhich my skin received in the sun.

Once is not custom: one swallow does not make a summer. Iswhat I have just seen due to accident or to premeditation? I turnto other Lycosae. Many, a deal too many for my patience, stubbornlyrefuse to dart from their haunts in order to attack the Carpenter-bee.The formidable quarry is too much for their daring. Shall nothunger, which brings the wolf from the wood, also bring the Tarantulaout of her hole? Two, apparently more famished than the rest,do at last pounce upon the Bee and repeat the scene of murder beforemy eyes. The prey, again bitten in the neck, exclusively in theneck, dies on the instant. Three murders, perpetrated in my presenceunder identical conditions, represent the fruits of my experiment pursued,on two occasions, from eight o’clock in the morning until twelvemidday.

I had seen enough. The quick insect-killer had taught me hertrade as had the paralyzer { 10}before her: she had shown me that she is thoroughly versed in the artof the butcher of the Pampas. { 11}The Tarantula is an accomplished desnucador. It remainedto me to confirm the open-air experiment with experiments in the privacyof my study. I therefore got together a menagerie of these poisonousSpiders, so as to judge of the virulence of their venom and its effectaccording to the part of the body injured by the fangs. A dozenbottles and test-tubes received the prisoners, whom I captured by themethods known to the reader. To one inclined to scream at thesight of a Spider, my study, filled with odious Lycosae, would havepresented a very uncanny appearance.

Though the Tarantula scorns or rather fears to attack an adversaryplaced in her presence in a bottle, she scarcely hesitates to bite whatis thrust beneath her fangs. I take her by the thorax with myforceps and present to her mouth the animal which I wish stung.Forthwith, if the Spider be not already tired by experiments, the fangsare raised and inserted. I first tried the effects of the biteupon the Carpenter-bee. When struck in the neck, the Bee succumbsat once. It was the lightning death which I witnessed on the thresholdof the burrows. When struck in the abdomen and then placed ina large bottle that leaves its movements free, the insect seems, atfirst, to have suffered no serious injury. It flutters about andbuzzes. But half an hour has not elapsed before death is imminent.The insect lies motionless upon its back or side. At most, a fewmovements of the legs, a slight pulsation of the belly, continuing tillthe morrow, proclaim that life has not yet entirely departed.Then everything ceases: the Carpenter-bee is a corpse.

The importance of this experiment compels our attention. Whenstung in the neck, the powerful Bee dies on the spot; and the Spiderhas not to fear the dangers of a desperate struggle. Stung elsewhere,in the abdomen, the insect is capable, for nearly half an hour, of makinguse of its dart, its mandibles, its legs; and woe to the Lycosa whomthe stiletto reaches. I have seen some who, stabbed in the mouthwhile biting close to the sting, died of the wound within the twenty-fourhours. That dangerous prey, therefore, requires instantaneousdeath, produced by the injury to the nerve-centres of the neck; otherwise,the hunter’s life would often be in jeopardy.

The Grasshopper order supplied me with a second series of victims:Green Grasshoppers as long as one’s finger, large-headed Locusts,Ephippigerae. { 12}The same result follows when these are bitten in the neck: lightningdeath. When injured elsewhere, notably in the abdomen, the subjectof the experiment resists for some time. I have seen a Grasshopper,bitten in the belly, cling firmly for fifteen hours to the smooth, uprightwall of the glass bell that constituted his prison. At last, hedropped off and died. Where the Bee, that delicate organism, succumbsin less than half an hour, the Grasshopper, coarse ruminant that heis, resists for a whole day. Put aside these differences, causedby unequal degrees of organic sensitiveness, and we sum up as follows:when bitten by the Tarantula in the neck, an insect, chosen from amongthe largest, dies on the spot; when bitten elsewhere, it perishes also,but after a lapse of time which varies considerably in the differententomological orders.

This explains the long hesitation of the Tarantula, so wearisometo the experimenter when he presents to her, at the entrance to theburrow, a rich, but dangerous prey. The majority refuse to flingthemselves upon the Carpenter-bee. The fact is that a quarry ofthis kind cannot be seized recklessly: the huntress who missed her strokeby biting at random would do so at the risk of her life. The napeof the neck alone possesses the desired vulnerability. The adversarymust be nipped there and no elsewhere. Not to floor her at oncewould mean to irritate her and make her more dangerous than ever.The Spider is well aware of this. In the safe shelter of her threshold,therefore, prepared to beat a quick retreat if necessary, she watchesfor the favourable moment; she waits for the big Bee to face her, whenthe neck is easily grabbed. If this condition of success offer,she leaps out and acts; if not, weary of the violent evolutions of thequarry, she retires indoors. And that, no doubt, is why it tookme two sittings of four hours apiece to witness three assassinations.

Formerly, instructed by the paralysing Wasps, I had myself triedto produce paralysis by injecting a drop of ammonia into the thoraxof those insects, such as Weevils, Buprestes, { 13}and Dung-beetles, whose compact nervous system assists this physiologicaloperation. I showed myself a ready pupil to my masters’teaching and used to paralyze a Buprestis or a Weevil almost as wellas a Cerceris { 14}could have done. Why should I not to-day imitate that expert butcher,the Tarantula? With the point of a fine needle, I inject a tinydrop of ammonia at the base of the skull of a Carpenter-bee or a Grasshopper.The insect succumbs then and there, without any other movement thanwild convulsions. When attacked by the acrid fluid, the cervicalganglia cease to do their work; and death ensues. Nevertheless,this death is not immediate; the throes last for some time. Theexperiment is not wholly satisfactory as regards suddenness. Why?Because the liquid which I employ, ammonia, cannot be compared, fordeadly efficacy, with the Lycosa’s poison, a pretty formidablepoison, as we shall see.

I make a Tarantula bite the leg of a young, well-fledged Sparrow,ready to leave the nest. A drop of blood flows; the wounded spotis surrounded by a reddish circle, changing to purple. The birdalmost immediately loses the use of its leg, which drags, with the toesdoubled in; it hops upon the other. Apart from this, the patientdoes not seem to trouble much about his hurt; his appetite is good.My daughters feed him on Flies, bread-crumb, apricot-pulp. Heis sure to get well, he will recover his strength; the poor victim ofthe curiosity of science will be restored to liberty. This isthe wish, the intention of us all. Twelve hours later, the hopeof a cure increases; the invalid takes nourishment readily; he clamoursfor it, if we keep him waiting. But the leg still drags.I set this down to a temporary paralysis which will soon disappear.Two days after, he refuses his food. Wrapping himself in his stoicismand his rumpled feathers, the Sparrow hunches into a ball, now motionless,now twitching. My girls take him in the hollow of their handsand warm him with their breath. The spasms become more frequent.A gasp proclaims that all is over. The bird is dead.

There was a certain coolness among us at the evening-meal.I read mute reproaches, because of my experiment, in the eyes of myhome-circle; I read an unspoken accusation of cruelty all around me.The death of the unfortunate Sparrow had saddened the whole family.I myself was not without some remorse of conscience: the poor resultachieved seemed to me too dearly bought. I am not made of thestuff of those who, without turning a hair, rip up live Dogs to findout nothing in particular.

Nevertheless, I had the courage to start afresh, this time on a Molecaught ravaging a bed of lettuces. There was a danger lest mycaptive, with his famished stomach, should leave things in doubt, ifwe had to keep him for a few days. He might die not of his wound,but of inanition, if I did not succeed in giving him suitable food,fairly plentiful and dispensed at fairly frequent intervals. Inthat case, I ran a risk of ascribing to the poison what might well bethe result of starvation. I must therefore begin by finding outif it was possible for me to keep the Mole alive in captivity.The animal was put into a large receptacle from which it could not getout and fed on a varied diet of insects—Beetles, Grasshoppers,especially Cicadae { 15}—whichit crunched up with an excellent appetite. Twenty-four hours ofthis regimen convinced me that the Mole was making the best of the billof fare and taking kindly to his captivity.

I make the Tarantula bite him at the tip of the snout. Whenreplaced in his cage, the Mole keeps on scratching his nose with hisbroad paws. The thing seems to burn, to itch. Henceforth,less and less of the provision of Cicadae is consumed; on the eveningof the following day, it is refused altogether. About thirty-sixhours after being bitten, the Mole dies during the night and certainlynot from inanition, for there are still half a dozen live Cicadae inthe receptacle, as well as a few Beetles.

The bite of the Black-bellied Tarantula is therefore dangerous toother animals than insects: it is fatal to the Sparrow, it is fatalto the Mole. Up to what point are we to generalize? I donot know, because my enquiries extended no further. Nevertheless,judging from the little that I saw, it appears to me that the bite ofthis Spider is not an accident which man can afford to treat lightly.This is all that I have to say to the doctors.

To the philosophical entomologists I have something else to say:I have to call their attention to the consummate knowledge of the insect-killers,which vies with that of the paralyzers. I speak of insect-killersin the plural, for the Tarantula must share her deadly art with a hostof other Spiders, especially with those who hunt without nets.These insect-killers, who live on their prey, strike the game dead instantaneouslyby stinging the nerve-centres of the neck; the paralyzers, on the otherhand, who wish to keep the food fresh for their larvae, destroy thepower of movement by stinging the game in the other nerve-centres.Both of them attack the nervous chain, but they select the point accordingto the object to be attained. If death be desired, sudden death,free from danger to the huntress, the insect is attacked in the neck;if mere paralysis be required, the neck is respected and the lower segments—sometimesone alone, sometimes three, sometimes all or nearly all, according tothe special organization of the victim—receive the dagger-thrust.

Even the paralyzers, at least some of them, are acquainted with theimmense vital importance of the nerve-centres of the neck. Wehave seen the Hairy Ammophila munching the caterpillar’s brain,the Languedocian Sphex munching the brain of the Ephippigera, with theobject of inducing a passing torpor. But they simply squeeze thebrain and do even this with a wise discretion; they are careful notto drive their sting into this fundamental centre of life; not one ofthem ever thinks of doing so, for the result would be a corpse whichthe larva would despise. The Spider, on the other hand, insertsher double dirk there and there alone; any elsewhere it would inflicta wound likely to increase resistance through irritation. Shewants a venison for consumption without delay and brutally thrusts herfangs into the spot which the others so conscientiously respect.

If the instinct of these scientific murderers is not, in both cases,an inborn predisposition, inseparable from the animal, but an acquiredhabit, then I rack my brain in vain to understand how that habit canhave been acquired. Shroud these facts in theoretic mists as muchas you will, you shall never succeed in veiling the glaring evidencewhich they afford of a pre-established order of things.

CHAPTER II: THE BANDED EPEIRA

In the inclement season of the year, when the insect has nothingto do and retires to winter quarters, the observer profits by the mildnessof the sunny nooks and grubs in the sand, lifts the stones, searchesthe brushwood; and often he is stirred with a pleasurable excitement,when he lights upon some ingenious work of art, discovered unawares.Happy are the simple of heart whose ambition is satisfied with suchtreasure-trove! I wish them all the joys which it has broughtme and which it will continue to bring me, despite the vexations oflife, which grow ever more bitter as the years follow their swift downwardcourse.

Should the seekers rummage among the wild grasses in the osier-bedsand copses, I wish them the delight of finding the wonderful objectthat, at this moment, lies before my eyes. It is the work of aSpider, the nest of the Banded Epeira (Epeira fasciata, LATR.).

A Spider is not an insect, according to the rules of classification;and as such the Epeira seems out of place here. { 16}A fig for systems! It is immaterial to the student of instinctwhether the animal have eight legs instead of six, or pulmonary sacsinstead of air-tubes. Besides, the Araneida belong to the groupof segmented animals, organized in sections placed end to end, a structureto which the terms ‘insect’ and ‘entomology’both refer.

Formerly, to describe this group, people said ‘articulate animals,’an expression which possessed the drawback of not jarring on the earand of being understood by all. This is out of date. Nowadays,they use the euphonious term ‘Arthropoda.’ And tothink that there are men who question the existence of progress!Infidels! Say, ‘articulate,’ first; then roll out,‘Arthropoda;’ and you shall see whether zoological scienceis not progressing!

In bearing and colouring, Epeira fasciatais the handsomestof the Spiders of the South. On her fat belly, a mighty silk-warehousenearly as large as a hazel-nut, are alternate yellow, black and silversashes, to which she owes her epithet of Banded. Around that portlyabdomen, the eight long legs, with their dark- and pale-brown rings,radiate like spokes.

Any small prey suits her; and, as long as she can find supports forher web, she settles wherever the Locust hops, wherever the Fly hovers,wherever the Dragon-fly dances or the Butterfly flits. As a rule,because of the greater abundance of game, she spreads her toils acrosssome brooklet, from bank to bank among the rushes. She also stretchesthem, but not assiduously, in the thickets of evergreen oak, on theslopes with the scrubby greenswards, dear to the Grasshoppers.

Her hunting-weapon is a large upright web, whose outer boundary,which varies according to the disposition of the ground, is fastenedto the neighbouring branches by a number of moorings. The structureis that adopted by the other weaving Spiders. Straight threadsradiate at equal intervals from a central point. Over this frameworkruns a continuous spiral thread, forming chords, or cross-bars, fromthe centre to the circumference. It is magnificently large andmagnificently symmetrical.

In the lower part of the web, starting from the centre, a wide opaqueribbon descends zigzag-wise across the radii. This is the Epeira’strade-mark, the flourish of an artist initialling his creation.‘FecitSo-and-so,’ she seems to say, when givingthe last throw of the shuttle to her handiwork.

That the Spider feels satisfied when, after passing and repassingfrom spoke to spoke, she finishes her spiral, is beyond a doubt: thework achieved ensures her food for a few days to come. But, inthis particular case, the vanity of the spinstress has naught to sayto the matter: the strong silk zigzag is added to impart greater firmnessto the web.

Increased resistance is not superfluous, for the net is sometimesexposed to severe tests. The Epeira cannot pick and choose herprizes. Seated motionless in the centre of her web, her eightlegs wide-spread to feel the shaking of the network in any direction,she waits for what luck will bring her: now some giddy weakling unableto control its flight, anon some powerful prey rushing headlong witha reckless bound.

The Locust in particular, the fiery Locust, who releases the springof his long shanks at random, often falls into the trap. One imaginesthat his strength ought to frighten the Spider; the kick of his spurredlevers should enable him to make a hole, then and there, in the weband to get away. But not at all. If he does not free himselfat the first effort, the Locust is lost.

Turning her back on the game, the Epeira works all her spinnerets,pierced like the rose of a watering-pot, at one and the same time.The silky spray is gathered by the hind-legs, which are longer thanthe others and open into a wide arc to allow the stream to spread.Thanks to this artifice, the Epeira this time obtains not a thread,but an iridescent sheet, a sort of clouded fan wherein the componentthreads are kept almost separate. The two hind-legs fling thisshroud gradually, by rapid alternate armfuls, while, at the same time,they turn the prey over and over, swathing it completely.

The ancient retiarius, when pitted against a powerful wildbeast, appeared in the arena with a rope-net folded over his left shoulder.The animal made its spring. The man, with a sudden movement ofhis right arm, cast the net after the manner of the fishermen; he coveredthe beast and tangled it in the meshes. A thrust of the tridentgave the quietus to the vanquished foe.

The Epeira acts in like fashion, with this advantage, that she isable to renew her armful of fetters. Should the first not suffice,a second instantly follows and another and yet another, until the reservesof silk become exhausted.

When all movement ceases under the snowy winding-sheet, the Spidergoes up to her bound prisoner. She has a better weapon than thebestiarius’ trident: she has her poison-fangs. Shegnaws at the Locust, without undue persistence, and then withdraws,leaving the torpid patient to pine away.

Soon she comes back to her motionless head of game: she sucks it,drains it, repeatedly changing her point of attack. At last, theclean-bled remains are flung out of the net and the Spider returns toher ambush in the centre of the web.

What the Epeira sucks is not a corpse, but a numbed body. IfI remove the Locust immediately after he has been bitten and releasehim from the silken sheath, the patient recovers his strength to suchan extent that he seems, at first, to have suffered no injury.The Spider, therefore, does not kill her capture before sucking itsjuices; she is content to deprive it of the power of motion by producinga state of torpor. Perhaps this kindlier bite gives her greaterfacility in working her pump. The humours, if stagnant, in a corpse,would not respond so readily to the action of the sucker; they are moreeasily extracted from a live body, in which they move about.

The Epeira, therefore, being a drinker of blood, moderates the virulenceof her sting, even with victims of appalling size, so sure is she ofher retiarian art. The long-legged Tryxalis, { 17}the corpulent Grey Locust, the largest of our Grasshoppers are acceptedwithout hesitation and sucked dry as soon as numbed. Those giants,capable of making a hole in the net and passing through it in theirimpetuous onrush, can be but rarely caught. I myself place themon the web. The Spider does the rest. Lavishing her silkyspray, she swathes them and then sucks the body at her ease. Withan increased expenditure of the spinnerets, the very biggest game ismastered as successfully as the everyday prey.

I have seen even better than that. This time, my subject isthe Silky Epeira (Epeira sericea, OLIV.), with a broad, festooned,silvery abdomen. Like that of the other, her web is large, uprightand ‘signed’ with a zigzag ribbon. I place upon ita Praying Mantis, { 18}a well-developed specimen, quite capable of changing rôles, shouldcircumstances permit, and herself making a meal off her assailant.It is a question no longer of capturing a peaceful Locust, but a fierceand powerful ogre, who would rip open the Epeira’s paunch withone blow of her harpoons.

Will the Spider dare? Not immediately. Motionless inthe centre of her net, she consults her strength before attacking theformidable quarry; she waits until the struggling prey has its clawsmore thickly entangled. At last, she approaches. The Mantiscurls her belly; lifts her wings like vertical sails; opens her saw-toothedarm-pieces; in short, adopts the spectral attitude which she employswhen delivering battle.

The Spider disregards these menaces. Spreading wide her spinnerets,she pumps out sheets of silk which the hind-legs draw out, expand andfling without stint in alternate armfuls. Under this shower ofthreads, the Mantis’ terrible saws, the lethal legs, quickly disappearfrom sight, as do the wings, still erected in the spectral posture.

Meanwhile, the swathed one gives sudden jerks, which make the Spiderfall out of her web. The accident is provided for. A safety-cord,emitted at the same instant by the spinnerets, keeps the Epeira hanging,swinging in space. When calm is restored, she packs her cord andclimbs up again. The heavy paunch and the hind-legs are now bound.The flow slackens, the silk comes only in thin sheets. Fortunately,the business is done. The prey is invisible under the thick shroud.

The Spider retires without giving a bite. To master the terriblequarry, she has spent the whole reserves of her spinning-mill, enoughto weave many good-sized webs. With this heap of shackles, furtherprecautions are superfluous.

After a short rest in the centre of the net, she comes down to dinner.Slight incisions are made in different parts of the prize, now here,now there; and the Spider puts her mouth to each and sucks the bloodof her prey. The meal is long protracted, so rich is the dish.For ten hours, I watch the insatiable glutton, who changes her pointof attack as each wound sucked dries up. Night comes and robsme of the finish of the unbridled debauch. Next morning, the drainedMantis lies upon the ground. The Ants are eagerly devouring theremains.

The eminent talents of the Epeirae are displayed to even better purposein the industrial business of motherhood than in the art of the chase.The silk bag, the nest, in which the Banded Epeira houses her eggs,is a much greater marvel than the bird’s nest. In shape,it is an inverted balloon, nearly the size of a Pigeon’s egg.The top tapers like a pear and is cut short and crowned with a scallopedrim, the corners of which are lengthened by means of moorings that fastenthe object to the adjoining twigs. The whole, a graceful ovoid,hangs straight down, amid a few threads that steady it.

The top is hollowed into a crater closed with a silky padding.Every other part is contained in the general wrapper, formed of thick,compact white satin, difficult to break and impervious to moisture.Brown and even black silk, laid out in abroad ribbons, in spindle-shapedpatterns, in fanciful meridian waves, adorns the upper portion of theexterior. The part played by this fabric is self-evident: it isa waterproof cover which neither dew nor rain can penetrate.

Exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, among the dead grasses,close to the ground, the Epeira’s nest has also to protect itscontents from the winter cold. Let us cut the wrapper with ourscissors. Underneath, we find a thick layer of reddish-brown silk,not worked into a fabric this time, but puffed into an extra-fine wadding.It is a fleecy cloud, an incomparable quilt, softer than any swan’s-down.This is the screen set up against loss of heat.

And what does this cosy mass protect? See: in the middle ofthe eiderdown hangs a cylindrical pocket, round at the bottom, cut squareat the top and closed with a padded lid. It is made of extremelyfine satin; it contains the Epeira’s eggs, pretty little orange-colouredbeads, which, glued together, form a globule the size of a pea.This is the treasure to be defended against the asperities of the winter.

Now that we know the structure of the work, let us try to see inwhat manner the spinstress sets about it. The observation is notan easy one, for the Banded Epeira is a night-worker. She needsnocturnal quiet in order not to go astray amid the complicated rulesthat guide her industry. Now and again, at very early hours inthe morning, I have happened to catch her working, which enables meto sum up the progress of the operations.

My subjects are busy in their bell-shaped cages, at about the middleof August. A scaffolding is first run up, at the top of the dome;it consists of a few stretched threads. The wire trellis representsthe twigs and the blades of grass which the Spider, if at liberty, wouldhave used as suspension-points. The loom works on this shaky support.The Epeira does not see what she is doing; she turns her back on hertask. The machinery is so well put together that the whole thinggoes automatically.

The tip of the abdomen sways, a little to the right, a little tothe left, rises and falls, while the Spider moves slowly round and round.The thread paid out is single. The hind-legs draw it out and placeit in position on that which is already done. Thus is formed asatin receptacle the rim of which is gradually raised until it becomesa bag about a centimetre deep. { 19}The texture is of the daintiest. Guy-ropes bind it to the nearestthreads and keep it stretched, especially at the mouth.

Then the spinnerets take a rest and the turn of the ovaries comes.A continuous shower of eggs falls into the bag, which is filled to thetop. The capacity of the receptacle has been so nicely calculatedthat there is room for all the eggs, without leaving any space unoccupied.When the Spider has finished and retires, I catch a momentary glimpseof the heap of orange-coloured eggs; but the work of the spinneretsis at once resumed.

The next business is to close the bag. The machinery worksa little differently. The tip of the belly no longer sways fromside to side. It sinks and touches a point; it retreats, sinksagain and touches another point, first here, then there, describinginextricable zigzags. At the same time, the hind-legs tread thematerial emitted. The result is no longer a stuff, but a felt,a blanketing.

Around the satin capsule, which contains the eggs, is the eiderdowndestined to keep out the cold. The youngsters will bide for sometime in this soft shelter, to strengthen their joints and prepare forthe final exodus. It does not take long to make. The spinning-millsuddenly alters the raw material: it was turning out white silk; itnow furnishes reddish-brown silk, finer than the other and issuing inclouds which the hind-legs, those dexterous carders, beat into a sortof froth. The egg-pocket disappears, drowned in this exquisitewadding.

The balloon-shape is already outlined; the top of the work tapersto a neck. The Spider, moving up and down, tacking first to oneside and then to the other, from the very first spray marks out thegraceful form as accurately as though she carried a compass in her abdomen.

Then, once again, with the same suddenness, the material changes.The white silk reappears, wrought into thread. This is the momentto weave the outer wrapper. Because of the thickness of the stuffand the density of its texture, this operation is the longest of theseries.

First, a few threads are flung out, hither and thither, to keep thelayer of wadding in position. The Epeira takes special pains withthe edge of the neck, where she fashions an indented border, the anglesof which, prolonged with cords or lines, form the main support of thebuilding. The spinnerets never touch this part without givingit, each time, until the end of the work, a certain added solidity,necessary to secure the stability of the balloon. The suspensoryindentations soon outline a crater which needs plugging. The Spidercloses the bag with a padded stopper similar to that with which shesealed the egg-pocket.

When these arrangements are made, the real manufacture of the wrapperbegins. The Spider goes backwards and forwards, turns and turnsagain. The spinnerets do not touch the fabric. With a rhythmical,alternate movement, the hind-legs, the sole implements employed, drawthe thread, seize it in their combs and apply it to the work, whilethe tip of the abdomen sways methodically to and fro.

In this way, the silken fibre is distributed in an even zigzag, ofalmost geometrical precision and comparable with that of the cottonthread which the machines in our factories roll so neatly into balls.And this is repeated all over the surface of the work, for the Spidershifts her position a little at every moment.

At fairly frequent intervals, the tip of the abdomen is lifted tothe mouth of the balloon; and then the spinnerets really touch the fringededge. The length of contact is even considerable. We find,therefore, that the thread is stuck in this star-shaped fringe, thefoundation of the building and the crux of the whole, while every elsewhereit is simply laid on, in a manner determined by the movements of thehind-legs. If we wished to unwind the work, the thread would breakat the margin; at any other point, it would unroll.

The Epeira ends her web with a dead-white, angular flourish; sheends her nest with brown mouldings, which run down, irregularly, fromthe marginal junction to the bulging middle. For this purpose,she makes use, for the third time, of a different silk; she now producessilk of a dark hue, varying from russet to black. The spinneretsdistribute the material with a wide longitudinal swing, from pole topole; and the hind-legs apply it in capricious ribbons. When thisis done, the work is finished. The Spider moves away with slowstrides, without giving a glance at the bag. The rest does notinterest her: time and the sun will see to it.

She felt her hour at hand and came down from her web. Nearby, in the rank grass, she wove the tabernacle of her offspring and,in so doing, drained her resources. To resume her hunting-post,to return to her web would be useless to her: she has not the wherewithalto bind the prey. Besides, the fine appetite of former days hasgone. Withered and languid, she drags out her existence for afew days and, at last, dies. This is how things happen in my cages;this is how they must happen in the brushwood.

The Silky Epeira (Epeira sericea, OLIV.) excels the BandedEpeira in the manufacture of big hunting-nets, but she is less giftedin the art of nest-building. She gives her nest the inelegantform of an obtuse cone. The opening of this pocket is very wideand is scalloped into lobes by which the edifice is slung. Itis closed with a large lid, half satin, half swan’s-down.The rest is a stout white fabric, frequently covered with irregularbrown streaks.

The difference between the work of the two Epeirae does not extendbeyond the wrapper, which is an obtuse cone in the one case and a balloonin the other. The same internal arrangements prevail behind thisfrontage: first, a flossy quilt; next, a little keg in which the eggsare packed. Though the two Spiders build the outer wall accordingto special architectural rules, they both employ the same means as aprotection against the cold.

As we see, the egg-bag of the Epeirae, particularly that of the BandedEpeira, is an important and complex work. Various materials enterinto its composition: white silk, red silk, brown silk; moreover, thesematerials are worked into dissimilar products: stout cloth, soft eiderdown,dainty satinette, porous felt. And all of this comes from thesame workshop that weaves the hunting-net, warps the zigzag ribbon-bandand casts an entangling shroud over the prey.

What a wonderful silk-factory it is! With a very simple andnever-varying plant, consisting of the hind-legs and the spinnerets,it produces, by turns, rope-maker’s, spinner’s, weaver’s,ribbon-maker’s and fuller’s work. How does the Spiderdirect an establishment of this kind? How does she obtain, atwill, skeins of diverse hues and grades? How does she turn themout, first in this fashion, then in that? I see the results, butI do not understand the machinery and still less the process.It beats me altogether.

The Spider also sometimes loses her head in her difficult trade,when some trouble disturbs the peace of her nocturnal labours.I do not provoke this trouble myself, for I am not present at thoseunseasonable hours. It is simply due to the conditions prevailingin my menagerie.

In their natural state, the Epeirae settle separately, at long distancesfrom one another. Each has her own hunting-grounds, where thereis no reason to fear the competition that would result from the closeproximity of the nets. In my cages, on the other hand, there iscohabitation. In order to save space, I lodge two or three Epeiraein the same cage. My easy-going captives live together in peace.There is no strife between them, no encroaching on the neighbour’sproperty. Each of them weaves herself a rudimentary web, as farfrom the rest as possible, and here, rapt in contemplation, as thoughindifferent to what the others are doing, she awaits the hop of theLocust.

Nevertheless, these close quarters have their drawbacks when laying-timearrives. The cords by which the different establishments are hunginterlace and criss-cross in a confused network. When one of themshakes, all the others are more or less affected. This is enoughto distract the layer from her business and to make her do silly things.Here are two instances.

A bag has been woven during the night. I find it, when I visitthe cage in the morning, hanging from the trellis-work and completed.It is perfect, as regards structure; it is decorated with the regulationblack meridian curves. There is nothing missing, nothing exceptthe essential thing, the eggs, for which the spinstress has gone tosuch expense in the matter of silks. Where are the eggs?They are not in the bag, which I open and find empty. They arelying on the ground below, on the sand in the pan, utterly unprotected.

Disturbed at the moment of discharging them, the mother has missedthe mouth of the little bag and dropped them on the floor. Perhapseven, in her excitement, she came down from above and, compelled bythe exigencies of the ovaries, laid her eggs on the first support thatoffered. No matter: if her Spider brain contains the least gleamof sense, she must be aware of the disaster and is therefore bound atonce to abandon the elaborate manufacture of a now superfluous nest.

Not at all: the bag is woven around nothing, as accurate in shape,as finished in structure as under normal conditions. The absurdperseverance displayed by certain Bees, whose egg and provisions I usedto remove, { 20} ishere repeated without the slightest interference from me. My victimsused scrupulously to seal up their empty cells. In the same way,the Epeira puts the eiderdown quilting and the taffeta wrapper rounda capsule that contains nothing.

Another, distracted from her work by some startling vibration, leavesher nest at the moment when the layer of red-brown wadding is beingcompleted. She flees to the dome, at a few inches above her unfinishedwork, and spends upon a shapeless mattress, of no use whatever, allthe silk with which she would have woven the outer wrapper if nothinghad come to disturb her.

Poor fool! You upholster the wires of your cage with swan’s-downand you leave the eggs imperfectly protected. The absence of thework already executed and the hardness of the metal do not warn youthat you are now engaged upon a senseless task. You remind meof the Pelopaeus, { 21}who used to coat with mud the place on the wall whence her nest hadbeen removed. You speak to me, in your own fashion, of a strangepsychology which is able to reconcile the wonders of a master craftsmanshipwith aberrations due to unfathomable stupidity.

Let us compare the work of the Banded Epeira with that of the PendulineTitmouse, the cleverest of our small birds in the art of nest-building.This Tit haunts the osier-beds of the lower reaches of the Rhone.Rocking gently in the river breeze, his nest sways pendent over thepeaceful backwaters, at some distance from the too-impetuous current.It hangs from the drooping end of the branch of a poplar, an old willowor an alder, all of them tall trees, favouring the banks of streams.

It consists of a cotton bag, closed all round, save for a small openingat the side, just sufficient to allow of the mother’s passage.In shape, it resembles the body of an alembic, a chemist’s retortwith a short lateral neck, or, better still, the foot of a stocking,with the edges brought together, but for a little round hole left atone side. The outward appearances increase the likeness: one canalmost see the traces of a knitting-needle working with coarse stitches.That is why, struck by this shape, the Provençal peasant, inhis expressive language, calls the Penduline lou Debassaire,the Stocking-knitter.

The early-ripening seedlets of the widows and poplars furnish thematerials for the work. There breaks from them, in May, a sortof vernal snow, a fine down, which the eddies of the air heap in thecrevices of the ground. It is a cotton similar to that of ourmanufactures, but of very short staple. It comes from an inexhaustiblewarehouse: the tree is bountiful; and the wind from the osier-beds gathersthe tiny flocks as they pour from the seeds. They are easy topick up.

The difficulty is to set to work. How does the bird proceed,in order to knit its stocking? How, with such simple implementsas its beak and claws, does it manage to produce a fabric which ourskilled fingers would fail to achieve? An examination of the nestwill inform us, to a certain extent.

The cotton of the poplar cannot, of itself, supply a hanging pocketcapable of supporting the weight of the brood and resisting the buffetingof the wind. Rammed, entangled and packed together, the flocks,similar to those which ordinary wadding would give if chopped up veryfine, would produce only an agglomeration devoid of cohesion and liableto be dispelled by the first breath of air. They require a canvas,a warp, to keep them in position.

Tiny dead stalks, with fibrous barks, well softened by the actionof moisture and the air, furnish the Penduline with a coarse tow, notunlike that of hemp. With these ligaments, purged of every woodyparticle and tested for flexibility and tenacity, he winds a numberof loops round the end of the branch which he has selected as a supportfor his structure.

It is not a very accurate piece of work. The loops run clumsilyand anyhow: some are slacker, others tighter; but, when all is said,it is solid, which is the main point. Also, this fibrous sheath,the keystone of the edifice, occupies a fair length of branch, whichenables the fastenings for the net to be multiplied.

The several straps, after describing a certain number of turns, ravelout at the ends and hang loose. After them come interlaced threads,greater in number and finer in texture. In the tangled jumbleoccur what might almost be described as weaver’s knots.As far as one can judge by the result alone, without having seen thebird at work, this is how the canvas, the support of the cotton wall,is obtained.

This warp, this inner framework, is obviously not constructed inits entirety from the start; it goes on gradually, as the bird stuffsthe part above it with cotton. The wadding, picked up bit by bitfrom the ground, is teazled by the bird’s claws and inserted,all fleecy, into the meshes of the canvas. The beak pushes it,the breast presses it, both inside and out. The result is a softfelt a couple of inches thick.

Near the top of the pouch, on one side, is contrived a narrow orifice,tapering into a short neck. This is the kitchen-door. Inorder to pass through it, the Penduline, small though he be, has toforce the elastic partition, which yields slightly and then contracts.Lastly, the house is furnished with a mattress of first-quality cotton.Here lie from six to eight white eggs, the size of a cherry-stone.

Well, this wonderful nest is a barbarous casemate compared with thatof the Banded Epeira. As regards shape, this stocking-foot cannotbe mentioned in the same breath with the Spider’s elegant andfaultlessly-rounded balloon. The fabric of mixed cotton and towis a rustic frieze beside the spinstress’ satin; the suspension-strapsare clumsy cables compared with her delicate silk fastenings.Where shall we find in the Penduline’s mattress aught to vie withthe Epeira’s eiderdown, that teazled russet gossamer? TheSpider is superior to the bird in every way, in so far as concerns herwork.

But, on her side, the Penduline is a more devoted mother. Forweeks on end, squatting at the bottom of her purse, she presses to herheart the eggs, those little white pebbles from which the warmth ofher body will bring forth life. The Epeira knows not these softerpassions. Without bestowing a second glance an it, she abandonsher nest to its fate, be it good or ill.

CHAPTER III: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA

The Epeira, who displays such astonishing industry to give her eggsa dwelling-house of incomparable perfection, becomes, after that, carelessof her family. For what reason? She lacks the time.She has to die when the first cold comes, whereas the eggs are destinedto pass the winter in their downy snuggery. The desertion of thenest is inevitable, owing to the very force of things. But, ifthe hatching were earlier and took place in the Epeira’s lifetime,I imagine that she would rival the bird in devotion.

So I gather from the analogy of Thomisus onustus, WALCK.,a shapely Spider who weaves no web, lies in wait for her prey and walkssideways, after the manner of the Crab. I have spoken elsewhere{ 22} of her encounterswith the Domestic Bee, whom she jugulates by biting her in the neck.

Skilful in the prompt despatch of her prey, the little Crab Spideris no less well-versed in the nesting art. I find her settledon a privet in the enclosure. Here, in the heart of a clusterof flowers, the luxurious creature plaits a little pocket of white satin,shaped like a wee thimble. It is the receptacle for the eggs.A round, flat lid, of a felted fabric, closes the mouth.

Above this ceiling rises a dome of stretched threads and faded floweretswhich have fallen from the cluster. This is the watcher’sbelvedere, her conning-tower. An opening, which is always free,gives access to this post.

Here the Spider remains on constant duty. She has thinned greatlysince she laid her eggs, has almost lost her corporation. At theleast alarm, she sallies forth, waves a threatening limb at the passingstranger and invites him, with a gesture, to keep his distance.Having put the intruder to flight, she quickly returns indoors.

And what does she do in there, under her arch of withered flowersand silk? Night and day, she shields the precious eggs with herpoor body spread out flat. Eating is neglected. No morelying in wait, no more Bees drained to the last drop of blood.Motionless, rapt in meditation, the Spider is in an incubating posture,in other words, she is sitting on her eggs. Strictly speaking,the word ‘incubating’ means that and nothing else.

The brooding Hen is no more assiduous, but she is also a heating-apparatusand, with the gentle warmth of her body, awakens the germs to life.For the Spider, the heat of the sun suffices; and this alone keeps mefrom saying that she ‘broods.’

For two or three weeks, more and more wrinkled by abstinence, thelittle Spider never relaxes her position. Then comes the hatching.The youngsters stretch a few threads in swing-like curves from twigto twig. The tiny rope-dancers practise for some days in the sun;then they disperse, each intent upon his own affairs.

Let us now look at the watch-tower of the nest. The motheris still there, but this time lifeless. The devoted creature hasknown the delight of seeing her family born; she has assisted the weaklingsthrough the trap-door; and, when her duty was done, very gently shedied. The Hen does not reach this height of self-abnegation.

Other Spiders do better still, as, for instance, the Narbonne Lycosa,or Black-bellied Tarantula (Lycosa narbonnensis, WALCK.), whoseprowess has been described in an earlier chapter. The reader willremember her burrow, her pit of a bottle-neck’s width, dug inthe pebbly soil beloved by the lavender and the thyme. The mouthis rimmed by a bastion of gravel and bits of wood cemented with silk.There is nothing else around her dwelling: no web, no snares of anykind.

From her inch-high turret, the Lycosa lies in wait for the passingLocust. She gives a bound, pursues the prey and suddenly deprivesit of motion with a bite in the neck. The game is consumed onthe spot, or else in the lair; the insect’s tough hide arousesno disgust. The sturdy huntress is not a drinker of blood, likethe Epeira; she needs solid food, food that crackles between the jaws.She is like a Dog devouring his bone.

Would you care to bring her to the light of day from the depths ofher well? Insert a thin straw into the burrow and move it about.Uneasy as to what is happening above, the recluse hastens to climb upand stops, in a threatening attitude, at some distance from the orifice.You see her eight eyes gleaming like diamonds in the dark; you see herpowerful poison-fangs yawning, ready to bite. He who is not accustomedto the sight of this horror, rising from under the ground, cannot suppressa shiver. B-r-r-r-r! Let us leave the beast alone.

Chance, a poor stand-by, sometimes contrives very well. Atthe beginning of the month of August, the children call me to the farside of the enclosure, rejoicing in a find which they have made underthe rosemary-bushes. It is a magnificent Lycosa, with an enormousbelly, the sign of an impending delivery.

The obese Spider is gravely devouring something in the midst of acircle of onlookers. And what? The remains of a Lycosa alittle smaller than herself, the remains of her male. It is theend of the tragedy that concludes the nuptials. The sweetheartis eating her lover. I allow the matrimonial rites to be fulfilledin all their horror; and, when the last morsel of the unhappy wretchhas been scrunched up, I incarcerate the terrible matron under a cagestanding in an earthen pan filled with sand.

Early one morning, ten days later, I find her preparing for her confinement.A silk network is first spun on the ground, covering an extent aboutequal to the palm of one’s hand. It is coarse and shapeless,but firmly fixed. This is the floor on which the Spider meansto operate.

On this foundation, which acts as a protection from the sand, theLycosa fashions a round mat, the size of a two-franc piece and madeof superb white silk. With a gentle, uniform movement, which mightbe regulated by the wheels of a delicate piece of clockwork, the tipof the abdomen rises and falls, each time touching the supporting basea little farther away, until the extreme scope of the mechanism is attained.

Then, without the Spider’s moving her position, the oscillationis resumed in the opposite direction. By means of this alternatemotion, interspersed with numerous contacts, a segment of the sheetis obtained, of a very accurate texture. When this is done, theSpider moves a little along a circular line and the loom works in thesame manner on another segment.

The silk disk, a sort of hardly concave paten, now no longer receivesaught from the spinnerets in its centre; the marginal belt alone increasesin thickness. The piece thus becomes a bowl-shaped porringer,surrounded by a wide, flat edge.

The time for the laying has come. With one quick emission,the viscous, pale-yellow eggs are laid in the basin, where they heaptogether in the shape of a globe which projects largely outside thecavity. The spinnerets are once more set going. With shortmovements, as the tip of the abdomen rises and falls to weave the roundmat, they cover up the exposed hemisphere. The result is a pillset in the middle of a circular carpet.

The legs, hitherto idle, are now working. They take up andbreak off one by one the threads that keep the round mat stretched onthe coarse supporting network. At the same time, the fangs gripthis sheet, lift it by degrees, tear it from its base and fold it overupon the globe of eggs. It is a laborious operation. Thewhole edifice totters, the floor collapses, fouled with sand.By a movement of the legs, those soiled shreds are cast aside.Briefly, by means of violent tugs of the fangs, which pull, and broom-likeefforts of the legs, which clear away, the Lycosa extricates the bagof eggs and removes it as a clear-cut mass, free from any adhesion.

It is a white-silk pill, soft to the touch and glutinous. Itssize is that of an average cherry. An observant eye will notice,running horizontally around the middle, a fold which a needle is ableto raise without breaking it. This hem, generally undistinguishablefrom the rest of the surface, is none other than the edge of the circularmat, drawn over the lower hemisphere. The other hemisphere, throughwhich the youngsters will go out, is less well fortified: its only wrapperis the texture spun over the eggs immediately after they were laid.

Inside, there is nothing but the eggs: no mattress, no soft eiderdown,like that of the Epeirae. The Lycosa, indeed, has no need to guardher eggs against the inclemencies of the winter, for the hatching willtake place long before the cold weather comes. Similarly, theThomisus, with her early brood, takes good care not to incur uselessexpenditure: she gives her eggs, for their protection, a simple purseof satin.

The work of spinning, followed by that of tearing, is continued fora whole morning, from five to nine o’clock. Worn out withfatigue, the mother embraces her dear pill and remains motionless.I shall see no more to-day. Next morning, I find the Spider carryingthe bag of eggs slung from her stern.

Henceforth, until the hatching, she does not leave go of the preciousburden, which, fastened to the spinnerets by a short ligament, dragsand bumps along the ground. With this load banging against herheels, she goes about her business; she walks or rests, she seeks herprey, attacks it and devours it. Should some accident cause thewallet to drop off, it is soon replaced. The spinnerets touchit somewhere, anywhere, and that is enough: adhesion is at once restored.

The Lycosa is a stay-at-home. She never goes out except tosnap up some game passing within her hunting-domains, near the burrow.At the end of August, however, it is not unusual to meet her roamingabout, dragging her wallet behind her. Her hesitations make onethink that she is looking for her home, which she has left for the momentand has a difficulty in finding.

Why these rambles? There are two reasons: first the pairingand then the making of the pill. There is a lack of space in theburrow, which provides only room enough for the Spider engaged in longcontemplation. Now the preparations for the egg-bag require anextensive flooring, a supporting framework about the size of one’shand, as my caged prisoner has shown us. The Lycosa has not somuch space at her disposal, in her well; hence the necessity for comingout and working at her wallet in the open air, doubtless in the quiethours of the night.

The meeting with the male seems likewise to demand an excursion.Running the risk of being eaten alive, will he venture to plunge intohis lady’s cave, into a lair whence flight would be impossible?It is very doubtful. Prudence demands that matters should takeplace outside. Here at least there is some chance of beating ahasty retreat which will enable the rash swain to escape the attacksof his horrible bride.

The interview in the open air lessens the danger without removingit entirely. We had proof of this when we caught the Lycosa inthe act of devouring her lover aboveground, in a part of the enclosurewhich had been broken for planting and which was therefore not suitablefor the Spider’s establishment. The burrow must have beensome way off; and the meeting of the pair took place at the very spotof the tragic catastrophe. Although he had a clear road, the malewas not quick enough in getting away and was duly eaten.

After this cannibal orgy, does the Lycosa go back home? Perhapsnot, for a while. Besides, she would have to go out a second time,to manufacture her pill on a level space of sufficient extent.

When the work is done, some of them emancipate themselves, thinkthey will have a look at the country before retiring for good and all.It is these whom we sometimes meet wandering aimlessly and draggingtheir bag behind them. Sooner or later, however, the vagrantsreturn home; and the month of August is not over before a straw rustledin any burrow will bring the mother up, with her wallet slung behindher. I am able to procure as many as I want and, with them, toindulge in certain experiments of the highest interest.

It is a sight worth seeing, that of the Lycosa dragging her treasureafter her, never leaving it, day or night, sleeping or waking, and defendingit with a courage that strikes the beholder with awe. If I tryto take the bag from her, she presses it to her breast in despair, hangson to my pincers, bites them with her poison-fangs. I can hearthe daggers grating on the steel. No, she would not allow herselfto be robbed of the wallet with impunity, if my fingers were not suppliedwith an implement.

By dint of pulling and shaking the pill with the forceps, I takeit from the Lycosa, who protests furiously. I fling her in exchangea pill taken from another Lycosa. It is at once seized in thefangs, embraced by the legs and hung on to the spinneret. Herown or another’s: it is all one to the Spider, who walks awayproudly with the alien wallet. This was to be expected, in viewof the similarity of the pills exchanged.

A test of another kind, with a second subject, renders the mistakemore striking. I substitute, in the place of the lawful bag whichI have removed, the work of the Silky Epeira. The colour and softnessof the material are the same in both cases; but the shape is quite different.The stolen object is a globe; the object presented in exchange is anelliptical conoid studded with angular projections along the edge ofthe base. The Spider takes no account of this dissimilarity.She promptly glues the queer bag to her spinnerets and is as pleasedas though she were in possession of her real pill. My experimentalvillainies have no other consequences beyond an ephemeral carting.When hatching-time arrives, early in the case of the Lycosa, late inthat of the Epeira, the gulled Spider abandons the strange bag and paysit no further attention.

Let us penetrate yet deeper into the wallet-bearer’s stupidity.After depriving the Lycosa of her eggs, I throw her a ball of cork,roughly polished with a file and of the same size as the stolen pill.She accepts the corky substance, so different from the silk purse, withoutthe least demur. One would have thought that she would recognizeher mistake with those eight eyes of hers, which gleam like preciousstones. The silly creature pays no attention. Lovingly sheembraces the cork ball, fondles it with her palpi, fastens it to herspinnerets and thenceforth drags it after her as though she were draggingher own bag.

Let us give another the choice between the imitation and the real.The rightful pill and the cork ball are placed together on the floorof the jar. Will the Spider be able to know the one that belongsto her? The fool is incapable of doing so. She makes a wildrush and seizes haphazard at one time her property, at another my shamproduct. Whatever is first touched becomes a good capture andis forthwith hung up.

If I increase the number of cork balls, if I put in four or fiveof them, with the real pill among them, it is seldom that the Lycosarecovers her own property. Attempts at enquiry, attempts at selectionthere are none. Whatever she snaps up at random she sticks to,be it good or bad. As there are more of the sham pills of cork,these are the most often seized by the Spider.

This obtuseness baffles me. Can the animal be deceived by thesoft contact of the cork? I replace the cork balls by pelletsof cotton or paper, kept in their round shape with a few bands of thread.Both are very readily accepted instead of the real bag that has beenremoved.

Can the illusion be due to the colouring, which is light in the corkand not unlike the tint of the silk globe when soiled with a littleearth, while it is white in the paper and the cotton, when it is identicalwith that of the original pill? I give the Lycosa, in exchangefor her work, a pellet of silk thread, chosen of a fine red, the brightestof all colours. The uncommon pill is as readily accepted and asjealously guarded as the others.

We will leave the wallet-bearer alone; we know all that we want toknow about her poverty of intellect. Let us wait for the hatching,which takes place in the first fortnight in September. As theycome out of the pill, the youngsters, to the number of about a coupleof hundred, clamber on the Spider’s back and there sit motionless,jammed close together, forming a sort of bark of mingled legs and paunches.The mother is unrecognizable under this live mantilla. When thehatching is over, the wallet is loosened from the spinnerets and castaside as a worthless rag.

The little ones are very good: none stirs none tries to get moreroom for himself at his neighbours’ expense. What are theydoing there, so quietly? They allow themselves to be carted about,like the young of the Opossum. Whether she sit in long meditationat the bottom of her den, or come to the orifice, in mild weather, tobask in the sun, the Lycosa never throws off her great-coat of swarmingyoungsters until the fine season comes.

If, in the middle of winter, in January or February, I happen, outin the fields, to ransack the Spider’s dwelling, after the rain,snow and frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastionat the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigour, stillcarrying her family. This vehicular upbringing lasts five or sixmonths at least, without interruption. The celebrated Americancarrier, the Opossum, who emancipates her offspring after a few weeks’carting, cuts a poor figure beside the Lycosa.

What do the little ones eat, on the maternal spine? Nothing,so far as I know. I do not see them grow larger. I findthem, at the tardy period of their emancipation, just as they were whenthey left the bag.

During the bad season, the mother herself is extremely abstemious.At long intervals, she accepts, in my jars, a belated Locust, whom Ihave captured, for her benefit, in the sunnier nooks. In orderto keep herself in condition, as when she is dug up in the course ofmy winter excavations, she must therefore sometimes break her fast andcome out in search of prey, without, of course, discarding her livemantilla.

The expedition has its dangers. The youngsters may be brushedoff by a blade of grass. What becomes of them when they have afall? Does the mother give them a thought? Does she cometo their assistance and help them to regain their place on her back?Not at all. The affection of a Spider’s heart, divided amongsome hundreds, can spare but a very feeble portion to each. TheLycosa hardly troubles, whether one youngster fall from his place, orsix, or all of them. She waits impassively for the victims ofthe mishap to get out of their own difficulty, which they do, for thatmatter, and very nimbly.

I sweep the whole family from the back of one of my boarders witha hair-pencil. Not a sign of emotion, not an attempt at searchon the part of the denuded one. After trotting about a littleon the sand, the dislodged youngsters find, these here, those there,one or other of the mother’s legs, spread wide in a circle.By means of these climbing-poles, they swarm to the top and soon thedorsal group resumes its original form. Not one of the lot ismissing. The Lycosa’s sons know their trade as acrobatsto perfection: the mother need not trouble her head about their fall.

With a sweep of the pencil, I make the family of one Spider fallaround another laden with her own family. The dislodged ones nimblyscramble up the legs and climb on the back of their new mother, whokindly allows them to behave as though they belonged to her. Thereis no room on the abdomen, the regulation resting-place, which is alreadyoccupied by the real sons. The invaders thereupon encamp on thefront part, beset the thorax and change the carrier into a horriblepin-cushion that no longer bears the least resemblance to a Spider form.Meanwhile, the sufferer raises no sort of protest against this accessof family. She placidly accepts them all and walks them all about.

The youngsters, on their side, are unable to distinguish betweenwhat is permitted and forbidden. Remarkable acrobats that theyare, they climb on the first Spider that comes along, even when of adifferent species, provided that she be of a fair size. I placethem in the presence of a big Epeira marked with a white cross on apale-orange ground (Epeira pallida, OLIV.). The littleones, as soon as they are dislodged from the back of the Lycosa theirmother, clamber up the stranger without hesitation.

Intolerant of these familiarities, the Spider shakes the leg encroachedupon and flings the intruders to a distance. The assault is doggedlyresumed, to such good purpose that a dozen succeed in hoisting themselvesto the top. The Epeira, who is not accustomed to the ticklingof such a load, turns over on her back and rolls on the ground in themanner of a donkey when his hide is itching. Some are lamed, someare even crushed. This does not deter the others, who repeat theescalade as soon as the Epeira is on her legs again. Then comemore somersaults, more rollings on the back, until the giddy swarm areall discomfited and leave the Spider in peace.

CHAPTER IV: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE BURROW

Michelet { 23}has told us how, as a printer’s apprentice in a cellar, he establishedamicable relations with a Spider. At a certain hour of the day,a ray of sunlight would glint through the window of the gloomy workshopand light up the little compositor’s case. Then his eight-leggedneighbour would come down from her web and take her share of the sunshineon the edge of the case. The boy did not interfere with her; hewelcomed the trusting visitor as a friend and as a pleasant diversionfrom the long monotony. When we lack the society of our fellow-men,we take refuge in that of animals, without always losing by the change.

I do not, thank God, suffer from the melancholy of a cellar: my solitudeis gay with light and verdure; I attend, whenever I please, the fields’high festival, the Thrushes’ concert, the Crickets’ symphony;and yet my friendly commerce with the Spider is marked by an even greaterdevotion than the young typesetter’s. I admit her to theintimacy of my study, I make room for her among my books, I set herin the sun on my window-ledge, I visit her assiduously at her home,in the country. The object of our relations is not to create ameans of escape from the petty worries of life, pin-pricks whereof Ihave my share like other men, a very large share, indeed; I proposeto submit to the Spider a host of questions whereto, at times, she condescendsto reply.

To what fair problems does not the habit of frequenting her giverise! To set them forth worthily, the marvellous art which thelittle printer was to acquire were not too much. One needs thepen of a Michelet; and I have but a rough, blunt pencil. Let ustry, nevertheless: even when poorly clad, truth is still beautiful.

I will therefore once more take up the story of the Spider’sinstinct, a story of which the preceding chapters have given but a veryrough idea. Since I wrote those earlier essays, my field of observationhas been greatly extended. My notes have been enriched by newand most remarkable facts. It is right that I should employ themfor the purpose of a more detailed biography.

The exigencies of order and clearness expose me, it is true, to occasionalrepetitions. This is inevitable when one has to marshal in anharmonious whole a thousand items culled from day to day, often unexpectedly,and bearing no relation one to the other. The observer is notmaster of his time; opportunity leads him and by unsuspected ways.A certain question suggested by an earlier fact finds no reply untilmany years after. Its scope, moreover, is amplified and completedwith views collected on the road. In a work, therefore, of thisfragmentary character, repetitions, necessary for the due co-ordinationof ideas, are inevitable. I shall be as sparing of them as I can.

Let us once more introduce our old friends the Epeira and the Lycosa,who are the most important Spiders in my district. The NarbonneLycosa, or Black-bellied Tarantula, chooses her domicile in the waste,pebbly lands beloved of the thyme. Her dwelling, a fortress ratherthan a villa, is a burrow about nine inches deep and as wide as theneck of a claret-bottle. The direction is perpendicular, in sofar as obstacles, frequent in a soil of this kind, permit. A bitof gravel can be extracted and hoisted outside; but a flint is an immovableboulder which the Spider avoids by giving a bend to her gallery.If more such are met with, the residence becomes a winding cave, withstone vaults, with lobbies communicating by means of sharp passages.

This lack of plan has no attendant drawbacks, so well does the owner,from long habit, know every corner and storey of her mansion.If any interesting buzz occur overhead, the Lycosa climbs up from herrugged manor with the same speed as from a vertical shaft. Perhapsshe even finds the windings and turnings an advantage, when she hasto drag into her den a prey that happens to defend itself.

As a rule, the end of the burrow widens into a side-chamber, a loungeor resting-place where the Spider meditates at length and is contentto lead a life of quiet when her belly is full.

A silk coating, but a scanty one, for the Lycosa has not the wealthof silk possessed by the Weaving Spiders, lines the walls of the tubeand keeps the loose earth from falling. This plaster, which cementsthe incohesive and smooths the rugged parts, is reserved more particularlyfor the top of the gallery, near the mouth. Here, in the daytime,if things be peaceful all around, the Lycosa stations herself, eitherto enjoy the warmth of the sun, her great delight, or to lie in waitfor game. The threads of the silk lining afford a firm hold tothe claws on every side, whether the object be to sit motionless forhours, revelling in the light and heat, or to pounce upon the passingprey.

Around the orifice of the burrow rises, to a greater or lesser height,a circular parapet, formed of tiny pebbles, twigs and straps borrowedfrom the dry leaves of the neighbouring grasses, all more or less dexterouslytied together and cemented with silk. This work of rustic architectureis never missing, even though it be no more than a mere pad.

When she reaches maturity and is once settled, the Lycosa becomeseminently domesticated. I have been living in close communionwith her for the last three years. I have installed her in largeearthen pans on the window-sills of my study and I have her daily undermy eyes. Well, it is very rarely that I happen on her outside,a few inches from her hole, back to which she bolts at the least alarm.

We may take it, then, that, when not in captivity, the Lycosa doesnot go far afield to gather the wherewithal to build her parapet andthat she makes shift with what she finds upon her threshold. Inthese conditions, the building-stones are soon exhausted and the masonryceases for lack of materials.

The wish came over me to see what dimensions the circular edificewould assume, if the Spider were given an unlimited supply. Withcaptives to whom I myself act as purveyor the thing is easy enough.Were it only with a view to helping whoso may one day care to continuethese relations with the big Spider of the waste-lands, let me describehow my subjects are housed.

A good-sized earthenware pan, some nine inches deep, is filled witha red, clayey earth, rich in pebbles, similar, in short, to that ofthe places haunted by the Lycosa. Properly moistened into a paste,the artificial soil is heaped, layer by layer, around a central reed,of a bore equal to that of the animal’s natural burrow.When the receptacle is filled to the top, I withdraw the reed, whichleaves a yawning, perpendicular shaft. I thus obtain the abodewhich shall replace that of the fields.

To find the hermit to inhabit it is merely the matter of a walk inthe neighbourhood. When removed from her own dwelling, which isturned topsy-turvy by my trowel, and placed in possession of the denproduced by my art, the Lycosa at once disappears into that den.She does not come out again, seeks nothing better elsewhere. Alarge wire-gauze cover rests on the soil in the pan and prevents escape.

In any case, the watch, in this respect, makes no demands upon mydiligence. The prisoner is satisfied with her new abode and manifestsno regret for her natural burrow. There is no attempt at flighton her part. Let me not omit to add that each pan must receivenot more than one inhabitant. The Lycosa is very intolerant.To her, a neighbour is fair game, to be eaten without scruple when onehas might on one’s side. Time was when, unaware of thisfierce intolerance, which is more savage still at breeding-time, I sawhideous orgies perpetrated in my overstocked cages. I shall haveoccasion to describe those tragedies later.

Let us meanwhile consider the isolated Lycosae. They do nottouch up the dwelling which I have moulded for them with a bit of reed;at most, now and again, perhaps with the object of forming a loungeor bedroom at the bottom, they fling out a few loads of rubbish.But all, little by little, build the kerb that is to edge the mouth.

I have given them plenty of first-rate materials, far superior tothose which they use when left to their own resources. These consist,first, for the foundations, of little smooth stones, some of which areas large as an almond. With this road-metal are mingled shortstrips of raphia, or palm-fibre, flexible ribbons, easily bent.These stand for the Spider’s usual basket-work, consisting ofslender stalks and dry blades of grass. Lastly, by way of an unprecedentedtreasure, never yet employed by a Lycosa, I place at my captives’disposal some thick threads of wool, cut into inch lengths.

As I wish, at the same time, to find out whether my animals, withthe magnificent lenses of their eyes, are able to distinguish coloursand prefer one colour to another, I mix up bits of wool of differenthues: there are red, green, white and yellow pieces. If the Spiderhave any preference, she can choose where she pleases.

The Lycosa always works at night, a regrettable circumstance, whichdoes not allow me to follow the worker’s methods. I seethe result; and that is all. Were I to visit the building-yardby the light of a lantern, I should be no wiser. The animal, whichis very shy, would at once dive into her lair; and I should have lostmy sleep for nothing. Furthermore, she is not a very diligentlabourer; she likes to take her time. Two or three bits of woolor raphia placed in position represent a whole night’s work.And to this slowness we must add long spells of utter idleness.

Two months pass; and the result of my liberality surpasses my expectations.Possessing more windfalls than they know what to do with, all pickedup in their immediate neighbourhood, my Lycosae have built themselvesdonjon-keeps the like of which their race has not yet known. Aroundthe orifice, on a slightly sloping bank, small, flat, smooth stoneshave been laid to form a broken, flagged pavement. The largerstones, which are Cyclopean blocks compared with the size of the animalthat has shifted them, are employed as abundantly as the others.

On this rockwork stands the donjon. It is an interlacing ofraphia and bits of wool, picked up at random, without distinction ofshade. Red and white, green and yellow are mixed without any attemptat order. The Lycosa is indifferent to the joys of colour.

The ultimate result is a sort of muff, a couple of inches high.Bands of silk, supplied by the spinnerets, unite the pieces, so thatthe whole resembles a coarse fabric. Without being absolutelyfaultless, for there are always awkward pieces on the outside, whichthe worker could not handle, the gaudy building is not devoid of merit.The bird lining its nest would do no better. Whoso sees the curious,many-coloured productions in my pans takes them for an outcome of myindustry, contrived with a view to some experimental mischief; and hissurprise is great when I confess who the real author is. No onewould ever believe the Spider capable of constructing such a monument.

It goes without saying that, in a state of liberty, on our barrenwaste-lands, the Lycosa does not indulge in such sumptuous architecture.I have given the reason: she is too great a stay-at-home to go in searchof materials and she makes use of the limited resources which she findsaround her. Bits of earth, small chips of stone, a few twigs,a few withered grasses: that is all, or nearly all. Whereforethe work is generally quite modest and reduced to a parapet that hardlyattracts attention.

My captives teach us that, when materials are plentiful, especiallytextile materials that remove all fears of landslip, the Lycosa delightsin tall turrets. She understands the art of donjon-building andputs it into practice as often as she possesses the means.

This art is akin to another, from which it is apparently derived.If the sun be fierce or if rain threaten, the Lycosa closes the entranceto her dwelling with a silken trellis-work, wherein she embeds differentmatters, often the remnants of victims which she has devoured.The ancient Gael nailed the heads of his vanquished enemies to the doorof his hut. In the same way, the fierce Spider sticks the skullsof her prey into the lid of her cave. These lumps look very wellon the ogre’s roof; but we must be careful not to mistake themfor warlike trophies. The animal knows nothing of our barbarousbravado. Everything at the threshold of the burrow is used indiscriminately:fragments of Locust, vegetable remains and especially particles of earth.A Dragon-fly’s head baked by the sun is as good as a bit of graveland no better.

And so, with silk and all sorts of tiny materials, the Lycosa buildsa lidded cap to the entrance of her home. I am not well acquaintedwith the reasons that prompt her to barricade herself indoors, particularlyas the seclusion is only temporary and varies greatly in duration.I obtain precise details from a tribe of Lycosae wherewith the enclosure,as will be seen later, happens to be thronged in consequence of my investigationsinto the dispersal of the family.

At the time of the tropical August heat, I see my Lycosae, now thisbatch, now that, building, at the entrance to the burrow, a convex ceiling,which is difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. Canit be to protect themselves from the too-vivid light? This isdoubtful; for, a few days later, though the power of the sun remainthe same, the roof is broken open and the Spider reappears at her door,where she revels in the torrid heat of the dog-days.

Later, when October comes, if it be rainy weather, she retires oncemore under a roof, as though she were guarding herself against the damp.Let us not be too positive of anything, however: often, when it is raininghard, the Spider bursts her ceiling and leaves her house open to theskies.

Perhaps the lid is only put on for serious domestic events, notablyfor the laying. I do, in fact, perceive young Lycosae who shutthemselves in before they have attained the dignity of motherhood andwho reappear, some time later, with the bag containing the eggs hungto their stern. The inference that they close the door with theobject of securing greater quiet while spinning the maternal cocoonwould not be in keeping with the unconcern displayed by the majority.I find some who lay their eggs in an open burrow; I come upon some whoweave their cocoon and cram it with eggs in the open air, before theyeven own a residence. In short, I do not succeed in fathomingthe reasons that cause the burrow to be closed, no matter what the weather,hot or cold, wet or dry.

The fact remains that the lid is broken and repaired repeatedly,sometimes on the same day. In spite of the earthy casing, thesilk woof gives it the requisite pliancy to cleave when pushed by theanchorite and to rip open without falling into ruins. Swept backto the circumference of the mouth and increased by the wreckage of furtherceilings, it becomes a parapet, which the Lycosa raises by degrees inher long moments of leisure. The bastion which surmounts the burrow,therefore, takes its origin from the temporary lid. The turretderives from the split ceiling.

What is the purpose of this turret? My pans will tell us that.An enthusiastic votary of the chase, so long as she is not permanentlyfixed, the Lycosa, once she has set up house, prefers to lie in ambushand wait for the quarry. Every day, when the heat is greatest,I see my captives come up slowly from under ground and lean upon thebattlements of their woolly castle-keep. They are then reallymagnificent in their stately gravity. With their swelling bellycontained within the aperture, their head outside, their glassy eyesstaring, their legs gathered for a spring, for hours and hours theywait, motionless, bathing voluptuously in the sun.

Should a tit-bit to her liking happen to pass, forthwith the watcherdarts from her tall tower, swift as an arrow from the bow. Witha dagger-thrust in the neck, she stabs the jugular of the Locust, Dragon-flyor other prey whereof I am the purveyor; and she as quickly scales thedonjon and retires with her capture. The performance is a wonderfulexhibition of skill and speed.

Very seldom is a quarry missed, provided that it pass at a convenientdistance, within the range of the huntress’ bound. But,if the prey be at some distance, for instance on the wire of the cage,the Lycosa takes no notice of it. Scorning to go in pursuit, sheallows it to roam at will. She never strikes except when sureof her stroke. She achieves this by means of her tower.Hiding behind the wall, she sees the stranger advancing, keeps her eyeson him and suddenly pounces when he comes within reach. Theseabrupt tactics make the thing a certainty. Though he were wingedand swift of flight, the unwary one who approaches the ambush is lost.

This presumes, it is true, an exemplary patience on the Lycosa’spart; for the burrow has naught that can serve to entice victims.At best, the ledge provided by the turret may, at rare intervals, temptsome weary wayfarer to use it as a resting-place. But, if thequarry do not come to-day, it is sure to come to-morrow, the next day,or later, for the Locusts hop innumerable in the waste-land, nor arethey always able to regulate their leaps. Some day or other, chanceis bound to bring one of them within the purlieus of the burrow.This is the moment to spring upon the pilgrim from the ramparts.Until then, we maintain a stoical vigilance. We shall dine whenwe can; but we shall end by dining.

The Lycosa, therefore, well aware of these lingering eventualities,waits and is not unduly distressed by a prolonged abstinence.She has an accommodating stomach, which is satisfied to be gorged to-dayand to remain empty afterwards for goodness knows how long. Ihave sometimes neglected my catering-duties for weeks at a time; andmy boarders have been none the worse for it. After a more or lessprotracted fast, they do not pine away, but are smitten with a wolf-likehunger. All these ravenous eaters are alike: they guzzle to excessto-day, in anticipation of to-morrow’s dearth.

In her youth, before she has a burrow, the Lycosa earns her livingin another manner. Clad in grey like her elders, but without theblack-velvet apron which she receives on attaining the marriageableage, she roams among the scrubby grass. This is true hunting.Should a suitable quarry heave in sight, the Spider pursues it, drivesit from its shelters, follows it hot-foot. The fugitive gainsthe heights, makes as though to fly away. He has not the time.With an upward leap, the Lycosa grabs him before he can rise.

I am charmed with the agility wherewith my yearling boarders seizethe Flies which I provide for them. In vain does the Fly takerefuge a couple of inches up, on some blade of grass. With a suddenspring into the air, the Spider pounces on the prey. No Cat isquicker in catching her Mouse.

But these are the feats of youth not handicapped by obesity.Later, when a heavy paunch, dilated with eggs and silk, has to be trailedalong, those gymnastic performances become impracticable. TheLycosa then digs herself a settled abode, a hunting-box, and sits inher watch-tower, on the look-out for game.

When and how is the burrow obtained wherein the Lycosa, once a vagrant,now a stay-at-home, is to spend the remainder of her long life?We are in autumn, the weather is already turning cool. This ishow the Field Cricket sets to work: as long as the days are fine andthe nights not too cold, the future chorister of spring rambles overthe fallows, careless of a local habitation. At critical moments,the cover of a dead leaf provides him with a temporary shelter.In the end, the burrow, the permanent dwelling, is dug as the inclementseason draws nigh.

The Lycosa shares the Cricket’s views: like him, she findsa thousand pleasures in the vagabond life. With September comesthe nuptial badge, the black-velvet bib. The Spiders meet at night,by the soft moonlight: they romp together, they eat the beloved shortlyafter the wedding; by day, they scour the country, they track the gameon the short-pile, grassy carpet, they take their fill of the joys ofthe sun. That is much better than solitary meditation at the bottomof a well. And so it is not rare to see young mothers draggingtheir bag of eggs, or even already carrying their family, and as yetwithout a home.

In October, it is time to settle down. We then, in fact, findtwo sorts of burrows, which differ in diameter. The larger, bottle-neckburrows belong to the old matrons, who have owned their house for twoyears at least. The smaller, of the width of a thick lead-pencil,contain the young mothers, born that year. By dint of long andleisurely alterations, the novice’s earths will increase in depthas well as in diameter and become roomy abodes, similar to those ofthe grandmothers. In both, we find the owner and her family, thelatter sometimes already hatched and sometimes still enclosed in thesatin wallet.

Seeing no digging-tools, such as the excavation of the dwelling seemedto me to require, I wondered whether the Lycosa might not avail herselfof some chance gallery, the work of the Cicada or the Earth-worm.This ready-made tunnel, thought I, must shorten the labours of the Spider,who appears to be so badly off for tools; she would only have to enlargeit and put it in order. I was wrong: the burrow is excavated,from start to finish, by her unaided labour.

Then where are the digging-implements? We think of the legs,of the claws. We think of them, but reflection tells us that toolssuch as these would not do: they are too long and too difficult to wieldin a confined space. What is required is the miner’s short-handledpick, wherewith to drive hard, to insert, to lever and to extract; whatis required is the sharp point that enters the earth and crumbles itinto fragments. There remain the Lycosa’s fangs, delicateweapons which we at first hesitate to associate with such work, so illogicaldoes it seem to dig a pit with surgeon’s scalpels.

The fangs are a pair of sharp, curved points, which, when at rest,crook like a finger and take shelter between two strong pillars.The Cat sheathes her claws under the velvet of the paw, to preservetheir edge and sharpness. In the same way, the Lycosa protectsher poisoned daggers by folding them within the case of two powerfulcolumns, which come plumb on the surface and contain the muscles thatwork them.

Well, this surgical outfit, intended for stabbing the jugular arteryof the prey, suddenly becomes a pick-axe and does rough navvy’swork. To witness the underground digging is impossible; but wecan, at least, with the exercise of a little patience, see the rubbishcarted away. If I watch my captives, without tiring, at a veryearly hour—for the work takes place mostly at night and at longintervals—in the end I catch them coming up with a load.Contrary to what I expected, the legs take no part in the carting.It is the mouth that acts as the barrow. A tiny ball of earthis held between the fangs and is supported by the palpi, or feelers,which are little arms employed in the service of the mouth-parts.The Lycosa descends cautiously from her turret, goes to some distanceto get rid of her burden and quickly dives down again to bring up more.

We have seen enough: we know that the Lycosa’s fangs, thoselethal weapons, are not afraid to bite into clay and gravel. Theyknead the excavated rubbish into pellets, take up the mass of earthand carry it outside. The rest follows naturally; it is the fangsthat dig, delve and extract. How finely-tempered they must be,not to be blunted by this well-sinker’s work and to do duty presentlyin the surgical operation of stabbing the neck!

I have said that the repairs and extensions of the burrow are madeat long intervals. From time to time, the circular parapet receivesadditions and becomes a little higher; less frequently still, the dwellingis enlarged and deepened. As a rule, the mansion remains as itwas for a whole season. Towards the end of winter, in March morethan at any other period, the Lycosa seems to wish to give herself alittle more space. This is the moment to subject her to certaintests.

We know that the Field Cricket, when removed from his burrow andcaged under conditions that would allow him to dig himself a new homeshould the fit seize him, prefers to tramp from one casual shelter toanother, or rather abandons every idea of creating a permanent residence.There is a short season whereat the instinct for building a subterraneangallery is imperatively aroused. When this season is past, theexcavating artist, if accidentally deprived of his abode, becomes awandering Bohemian, careless of a lodging. He has forgotten histalents and he sleeps out.

That the bird, the nest-builder, should neglect its art when it hasno brood to care for is perfectly logical: it builds for its family,not for itself. But what shall we say of the Cricket, who is exposedto a thousand mishaps when away from home? The protection of aroof would be of great use to him; and the giddy-pate does not giveit a thought, though he is very strong and more capable than ever ofdigging with his powerful jaws.

What reason can we allege for this neglect? None, unless itbe that the season of strenuous burrowing is past. The instinctshave a calendar of their own. At the given hour, suddenly theyawaken; as suddenly, afterwards, they fall asleep. The ingeniousbecome incompetent when the prescribed period is ended.

On a subject of this kind, we can consult the Spider of the waste-lands.I catch an old Lycosa in the fields and house her, that same day, underwire, in a burrow where I have prepared a soil to her liking.If, by my contrivances and with a bit of reed, I have previously mouldeda burrow roughly representing the one from which I took her, the Spiderenters it forthwith and seems pleased with her new residence.The product of my art is accepted as her lawful property and undergoeshardly any alterations. In course of time, a bastion is erectedaround the orifice; the top of the gallery is cemented with silk; andthat is all. In this establishment of my building, the animal’sbehaviour remains what it would be under natural conditions.

But place the Lycosa on the surface of the ground, without firstshaping a burrow. What will the homeless Spider do? Digherself a dwelling, one would think. She has the strength to doso; she is in the prime of life. Besides, the soil is similarto that whence I ousted her and suits the operation perfectly.We therefore expect to see the Spider settled before long in a shaftof her own construction.

We are disappointed. Weeks pass and not an effort is made,not one. Demoralized by the absence of an ambush, the Lycosa hardlyvouchsafes a glance at the game which I serve up. The Cricketspass within her reach in vain; most often she scorns them. Sheslowly wastes away with fasting and boredom. At length, she dies.

Take up your miner’s trade again, poor fool! Make yourselfa home, since you know how to, and life will be sweet to you for manya long day yet: the weather is fine and victuals plentiful. Dig,delve, go underground, where safety lies. Like an idiot, you refrain;and you perish. Why?

Because the craft which you were wont to ply is forgotten; becausethe days of patient digging are past and your poor brain is unable towork back. To do a second time what has been done already is beyondyour wit. For all your meditative air, you cannot solve the problemof how to reconstruct that which is vanished and gone.

Let us now see what we can do with younger Lycosae, who are at theburrowing-stage. I dig out five or six at the end of February.They are half the size of the old ones; their burrows are equal in diameterto my little finger. Rubbish quite fresh-spread around the pitbears witness to the recent date of the excavations.

Relegated to their wire cages, these young Lycosae behave differentlyaccording as the soil placed at their disposal is or is not alreadyprovided with a burrow made by me. A burrow is hardly the word:I give them but the nucleus of a shaft, about an inch deep, to lurethem on. When in possession of this rudimentary lair, the Spiderdoes not hesitate to pursue the work which I have interrupted in thefields. At night, she digs with a will. I can see this bythe heap of rubbish flung aside. She at last obtains a house tosuit her, a house surmounted by the usual turret.

The others, on the contrary, those Spiders for whom the thrust ofmy pencil has not contrived an entrance-hall representing, to a certainextent, the natural gallery whence I dislodged them, absolutely refuseto work; and they die, notwithstanding the abundance of provisions.

The first pursue the season’s task. They were diggingwhen I caught them; and, carried away by the enthusiasm of their activity,they go on digging inside my cages. Taken in by my decoy-shaft,they deepen the imprint of the pencil as though they were deepeningtheir real vestibule. They do not begin their labours over again;they continue them.

The second, not having this inducement, this semblance of a burrowmistaken for their own work, forsake the idea of digging and allow themselvesto die, because they would have to travel back along the chain of actionsand to resume the pick-strokes of the start. To begin all overagain requires reflection, a quality wherewith they are not endowed.

To the insect—and we have seen this in many earlier cases—whatis done is done and cannot be taken up again. The hands of a watchdo not move backwards. The insect behaves in much the same way.Its activity urges it in one direction, ever forwards, without allowingit to retrace its steps, even when an accident makes this necessary.

What the Mason-bees and the others taught us erewhile the Lycosanow confirms in her manner. Incapable of taking fresh pains tobuild herself a second dwelling, when the first is done for, she willgo on the tramp, she will break into a neighbour’s house, shewill run the risk of being eaten should she not prove the stronger,but she will never think of making herself a home by starting afresh.

What a strange intellect is that of the animal, a mixture of mechanicalroutine and subtle brain-power! Does it contain gleams that contrive,wishes that pursue a definite object? Following in the wake ofso many others, the Lycosa warrants us in entertaining a doubt.

CHAPTER V: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE FAMILY

For three weeks and more, the Lycosa trails the bag of eggs hangingto her spinnerets. The reader will remember the experiments describedin the third chapter of this volume, particularly those with the corkball and the thread pellet which the Spider so foolishly accepts inexchange for the real pill. Well, this exceedingly dull-wittedmother, satisfied with aught that knocks against her heels, is aboutto make us wonder at her devotion.

Whether she come up from her shaft to lean upon the kerb and baskin the sun, whether she suddenly retire underground in the face of danger,or whether she be roaming the country before settling down, never doesshe let go her precious bag, that very cumbrous burden in walking, climbingor leaping. If, by some accident, it become detached from thefastening to which it is hung, she flings herself madly on her treasureand lovingly embraces it, ready to bite whoso would take it from her.I myself am sometimes the thief. I then hear the points of thepoison-fangs grinding against the steel of my pincers, which tug inone direction while the Lycosa tugs in the other. But let us leavethe animal alone: with a quick touch of the spinnerets, the pill isrestored to its place; and the Spider strides off, still menacing.

Towards the end of summer, all the householders, old or young, whetherin captivity on the window-sill or at liberty in the paths of the enclosure,supply me daily with the following improving sight. In the morning,as soon as the sun is hot and beats upon their burrow, the anchoritescome up from the bottom with their bag and station themselves at theopening. Long siestas on the threshold in the sun are the orderof the day throughout the fine season; but, at the present time, theposition adopted is a different one. Formerly, the Lycosa cameout into the sun for her own sake. Leaning on the parapet, shehad the front half of her body outside the pit and the hinder half inside.

The eyes took their fill of light; the belly remained in the dark.When carrying her egg-bag, the Spider reverses the posture: the frontis in the pit, the rear outside. With her hind-legs she holdsthe white pill bulging with germs lifted above the entrance; gentlyshe turns and returns it, so as to present every side to the life-givingrays. And this goes on for half the day, so long as the temperatureis high; and it is repeated daily, with exquisite patience, during threeor four weeks. To hatch its eggs, the bird covers them with thequilt of its breast; it strains them to the furnace of its heart.The Lycosa turns hers in front of the hearth of hearths, she gives themthe sun as an incubator.

In the early days of September, the young ones, who have been sometime hatched, are ready to come out. The pill rips open alongthe middle fold. We read of the origin of this fold in an earlierchapter. { 24}Does the mother, feeling the brood quicken inside the satin wrapper,herself break open the vessel at the opportune moment? It seemsprobable. On the other hand, there may be a spontaneous bursting,such as we shall see later in the Banded Epeira’s balloon, a toughwallet which opens a breach of its own accord, long after the motherhas ceased to exist.

The whole family emerges from the bag straightway. Then andthere, the youngsters climb to the mother’s back. As forthe empty bag, now a worthless shred, it is flung out of the burrow;the Lycosa does not give it a further thought. Huddled together,sometimes in two or three layers, according to their number, the littleones cover the whole back of the mother, who, for seven or eight monthsto come, will carry her family night and day. Nowhere can we hopeto see a more edifying domestic picture than that of the Lycosa clothedin her young.

From time to time, I meet a little band of gipsies passing alongthe high-road on their way to some neighbouring fair. The new-bornbabe mewls on the mother’s breast, in a hammock formed out ofa kerchief. The last-weaned is carried pick-a-back; a third toddlesclinging to its mother’s skirts; others follow closely, the biggestin the rear, ferreting in the blackberry-laden hedgerows. It isa magnificent spectacle of happy-go-lucky fruitfulness. They gotheir way, penniless and rejoicing. The sun is hot and the earthis fertile.

But how this picture pales before that of the Lycosa, that incomparablegipsy whose brats are numbered by the hundred! And one and allof them, from September to April, without a moment’s respite,find room upon the patient creature’s back, where they are contentto lead a tranquil life and to be carted about.

The little ones are very good; none moves, none seeks a quarrel withhis neighbours. Clinging together, they form a continuous drapery,a shaggy ulster under which the mother becomes unrecognizable.Is it an animal, a fluff of wool, a cluster of small seeds fastenedto one another? ’Tis impossible to tell at the first glance.

The equilibrium of this living blanket is not so firm but that fallsoften occur, especially when the mother climbs from indoors and comesto the threshold to let the little ones take the sun. The leastbrush against the gallery unseats a part of the family. The mishapis not serious. The Hen, fidgeting about her Chicks, looks forthe strays, calls them, gathers them together. The Lycosa knowsnot these maternal alarms. Impassively, she leaves those who dropoff to manage their own difficulty, which they do with wonderful quickness.Commend me to those youngsters for getting up without whining, dustingthemselves and resuming their seat in the saddle! The unhorsedones promptly find a leg of the mother, the usual climbing-pole; theyswarm up it as fast as they can and recover their places on the bearer’sback. The living bark of animals is reconstructed in the twinklingof an eye.

To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extravagant. TheLycosa’s affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that ofthe plant, which is unacquainted with any tender feeling and neverthelessbestows the nicest and most delicate care upon its seeds. Theanimal, in many cases, knows no other sense of motherhood. Whatcares the Lycosa for her brood! She accepts another’s asreadily as her own; she is satisfied so long as her back is burdenedwith a swarming crowd, whether it issue from her ovaries or elsewhence.There is no question here of real maternal affection.

I have described elsewhere the prowess of the Copris { 25}watching over cells that are not her handiwork and do not contain heroffspring. With a zeal which even the additional labour laid uponher does not easily weary, she removes the mildew from the alien dung-balls,which far exceed the regular nests in number; she gently scrapes andpolishes and repairs them; she listens to them attentively and enquiresby ear into each nursling’s progress. Her real collectioncould not receive greater care. Her own family or another’s:it is all one to her.

The Lycosa is equally indifferent. I take a hair-pencil andsweep the living burden from one of my Spiders, making it fall closeto another covered with her little ones. The evicted youngstersscamper about, find the new mother’s legs outspread, nimbly clamberup these and mount on the back of the obliging creature, who quietlylets them have their way.

They slip in among the others, or, when the layer is too thick, pushto the front and pass from the abdomen to the thorax and even to thehead, though leaving the region of the eyes uncovered. It doesnot do to blind the bearer: the common safety demands that. Theyknow this and respect the lenses of the eyes, however populous the assemblybe. The whole animal is now covered with a swarming carpet ofyoung, all except the legs, which must preserve their freedom of action,and the under part of the body, where contact with the ground is tobe feared.

My pencil forces a third family upon the already overburdened Spider;and this too is peacefully accepted. The youngsters huddle upcloser, lie one on top of the other in layers and room is found forall. The Lycosa has lost the last semblance of an animal, hasbecome a nameless bristling thing that walks about. Falls arefrequent and are followed by continual climbings.

I perceive that I have reached the limits not of the bearer’sgood-will, but of equilibrium. The Spider would adopt an indefinitefurther number of foundlings, if the dimensions of her back affordedthem a firm hold. Let us be content with this. Let us restoreeach family to its mother, drawing at random from the lot. Theremust necessarily be interchanges, but that is of no importance: realchildren and adopted children are the same thing in the Lycosa’seyes.

One would like to know if, apart from my artifices, in circumstanceswhere I do not interfere, the good-natured dry-nurse sometimes burdensherself with a supplementary family; it would also be interesting tolearn what comes of this association of lawful offspring and strangers.I have ample materials wherewith to obtain an answer to both questions.I have housed in the same cage two elderly matrons laden with youngsters.Each has her home as far removed from the other’s as the sizeof the common pan permits. The distance is nine inches or more.It is not enough. Proximity soon kindles fierce jealousies betweenthose intolerant creatures, who are obliged to live far apart, so asto secure adequate hunting-grounds.

One morning, I catch the two harridans fighting out their quarrelon the floor. The loser is laid flat upon her back; the victress,belly to belly with her adversary, clutches her with her legs and preventsher from moving a limb. Both have their poison-fangs wide open,ready to bite without yet daring, so mutually formidable are they.After a certain period of waiting, during which the pair merely exchangethreats, the stronger of the two, the one on top, closes her lethalengine and grinds the head of the prostrate foe. Then she calmlydevours the deceased by small mouthfuls.

Now what do the youngsters do, while their mother is being eaten?Easily consoled, heedless of the atrocious scene, they climb on theconqueror’s back and quietly take their places among the lawfulfamily. The ogress raises no objection, accepts them as her own.She makes a meal off the mother and adopts the orphans.

Let us add that, for many months yet, until the final emancipationcomes, she will carry them without drawing any distinction between themand her own young. Henceforth, the two families, united in sotragic a fashion, will form but one. We see how greatly out ofplace it would be to speak, in this connection, of mother-love and itsfond manifestations.

Does the Lycosa at least feed the younglings who, for seven months,swarm upon her back? Does she invite them to the banquet whenshe has secured a prize? I thought so at first; and, anxious toassist at the family repast, I devoted special attention to watchingthe mothers eat. As a rule, the prey is consumed out of sight,in the burrow; but sometimes also a meal is taken on the threshold,in the open air. Besides, it is easy to rear the Lycosa and herfamily in a wire-gauze cage, with a layer of earth wherein the captivewill never dream of sinking a well, such work being out of season.Everything then happens in the open.

Well, while the mother munches, chews, expresses the juices and swallows,the youngsters do not budge from their camping-ground on her back.Not one quits its place nor gives a sign of wishing to slip down andjoin in the meal. Nor does the mother extend an invitation tothem to come and recruit themselves, nor put any broken victuals asidefor them. She feeds and the others look on, or rather remain indifferentto what is happening. Their perfect quiet during the Lycosa’sfeast points to the posession of a stomach that knows no cravings.

Then with what are they sustained, during their seven months’upbringing on the mother’s back? One conceives a notionof exudations supplied by the bearer’s body, in which case theyoung would feed on their mother, after the manner of parasitic vermin,and gradually drain her strength.

We must abandon this notion. Never are they seen to put theirmouths to the skin that should be a sort of teat to them. On theother hand, the Lycosa, far from being exhausted and shrivelling, keepsperfectly well and plump. She has the same pot-belly when shefinishes rearing her young as when she began. She has not lostweight: far from it; on the contrary, she has put on flesh: she hasgained the wherewithal to beget a new family next summer, one as numerousas to-day’s.

Once more, with what do the little ones keep up their strength?We do not like to suggest reserves supplied by the egg as rectifyingthe beastie’s expenditure of vital force, especially when we considerthat those reserves, themselves so close to nothing, must be economizedin view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of whicha plentiful use will be made presently. There must be other powersat play in the tiny animal’s machinery.

Total abstinence from food could be understood, if it were accompaniedby inertia: immobility is not life. But the young Lycosae, althoughusually quiet on their mother’s back, are at all times ready forexercise and for agile swarming. When they fall from the maternalperambulator, they briskly pick themselves up, briskly scramble up aleg and make their way to the top. It is a splendidly nimble andspirited performance. Besides, once seated, they have to keepa firm balance in the mass; they have to stretch and stiffen their littlelimbs in order to hang on to their neighbours. As a matter offact, there is no absolute rest for them. Now physiology teachesus that not a fibre works without some expenditure of energy.The animal, which can be likened, in no small measure, to our industrialmachines, demands, on the one hand, the renovation of its organism,which wears out with movement, and, on the other, the maintenance ofthe heat transformed into action. We can compare it with the locomotive-engine.As the iron horse performs its work, it gradually wears out its pistons,its rods, its wheels, its boiler-tubes, all of which have to be madegood from time to time. The founder and the smith repair it, supplyit, so to speak, with ‘plastic food,’ the food that becomesembodied with the whole and forms part of it. But, though it havejust come from the engine-shop, it is still inert. To acquirethe power of movement, it must receive from the stoker a supply of ‘energy-producingfood;’ in other words, he lights a few shovelfuls of coal in itsinside. This heat will produce mechanical work.

Even so with the beast. As nothing is made from nothing, theegg supplies first the materials of the new-born animal; then the plasticfood, the smith of living creatures, increases the body, up to a certainlimit, and renews it as it wears away. The stoker works at thesame time, without stopping. Fuel, the source of energy, makesbut a short stay in the system, where it is consumed and furnishes heat,whence movement is derived. Life is a fire-box. Warmed byits food, the animal machine moves, walks, runs, jumps, swims, flies,sets its locomotory apparatus going in a thousand manners.

To return to the young Lycosae, they grow no larger until the periodof their emancipation. I find them at the age of seven monthsthe same as when I saw them at their birth. The egg supplied thematerials necessary for their tiny frames; and, as the loss of wastesubstance is, for the moment, excessively small, or even nil,additional plastic food is not needed so long as the beastie does notgrow. In this respect, the prolonged abstinence presents no difficulty.But there remains the question of energy-producing food, which is indispensable,for the little Lycosa moves, when necessary, and very actively at that.To what shall we attribute the heat expended upon action, when the animaltakes absolutely no nourishment?

An idea suggests itself. We say to ourselves that, withoutbeing life, a machine is something more than matter, for man has addeda little of his mind to it. Now the iron beast, consuming itsration of coal, is really browsing the ancient foliage of arborescentferns in which solar energy has accumulated.

Beasts of flesh and blood act no otherwise. Whether they mutuallydevour one another or levy tribute on the plant, they invariably quickenthemselves with the stimulant of the sun’s heat, a heat storedin grass, fruit, seed and those which feed on such. The sun, thesoul of the universe, is the supreme dispenser of energy.

Instead of being served up through the intermediary of food and passingthrough the ignominious circuit of gastric chemistry, could not thissolar energy penetrate the animal directly and charge it with activity,even as the battery charges an accumulator with power? Why notlive on sun, seeing that, after all, we find naught but sun in the fruitswhich we consume?

Chemical science, that bold revolutionary, promises to provide uswith synthetic food-stuffs. The laboratory and the factory willtake the place of the farm. Why should not physical science stepin as well? It would leave the preparation of plastic food tothe chemist’s retorts; it would reserve for itself that of energy-producingfood, which, reduced to its exact terms, ceases to be matter.With the aid of some ingenious apparatus, it would pump into us ourdaily ration of solar energy, to be later expended in movement, wherebythe machine would be kept going without the often painful assistanceof the stomach and its adjuncts. What a delightful world, whereone would lunch off a ray of sunshine!

Is it a dream, or the anticipation of a remote reality? Theproblem is one of the most important that science can set us.Let us first hear the evidence of the young Lycosae regarding its possibilities.

For seven months, without any material nourishment, they expend strengthin moving. To wind up the mechanism of their muscles, they recruitthemselves direct with heat and light. During the time when shewas dragging the bag of eggs behind her, the mother, at the best momentsof the day, came and held up her pill to the sun. With her twohind-legs, she lifted it out of the ground, into the full light; slowlyshe turned it and returned it, so that every side might receive itsshare of the vivifying rays. Well, this bath of life, which awakenedthe germs, is now prolonged to keep the tender babes active.

Daily, if the sky be clear, the Lycosa, carrying her young, comesup from the burrow, leans on the kerb and spends long hours baskingin the sun. Here, on their mother’s back, the youngstersstretch their limbs delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, takein reserves of motor power, absorb energy.

They are motionless; but, if I only blow upon them, they stampedeas nimbly as though a hurricane were passing. Hurriedly, theydisperse; hurriedly, they reassemble: a proof that, without materialnourishment, the little animal machine is always at full pressure, readyto work. When the shade comes, mother and sons go down again,surfeited with solar emanations. The feast of energy at the SunTavern is finished for the day. It is repeated in the same waydaily, if the weather be mild, until the hour of emancipation comes,followed by the first mouthfuls of solid food.

CHAPTER VI: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE CLIMBING-INSTINCT

The month of March comes to an end; and the departure of the youngstersbegins, in glorious weather, during the hottest hours of the morning.Laden with her swarming burden, the mother Lycosa is outside her burrow,squatting on the parapet at the entrance. She lets them do asthey please; as though indifferent to what is happening, she exhibitsneither encouragement nor regret. Whoso will goes; whoso willremains behind.

First these, then those, according as they feel themselves duly soakedwith sunshine, the little ones leave the mother in batches, run aboutfor a moment on the ground and then quickly reach the trellis-work ofthe cage, which they climb with surprising alacrity. They passthrough the meshes, they clamber right to the top of the citadel.All, with not one exception, make for the heights, instead of roamingon the ground, as might reasonably be expected from the eminently earthlyhabits of the Lycosae; all ascend the dome, a strange procedure whereofI do not yet guess the object.

I receive a hint from the upright ring that finishes the top of thecage. The youngsters hurry to it. It represents the porchof their gymnasium. They hang out threads across the opening;they stretch others from the ring to the nearest points of the trellis-work.On these foot-bridges, they perform slack-rope exercises amid endlesscomings and goings. The tiny legs open out from time to time andstraddle as though to reach the most distant points. I begin torealize that they are acrobats aiming at loftier heights than thoseof the dome.

I top the trellis with a branch that doubles the attainable height.The bustling crowd hastily scrambles up it, reaches the tip of the topmosttwigs and thence sends out threads that attach themselves to every surroundingobject. These form so many suspension-bridges; and my beastiesnimbly run along them, incessantly passing to and fro. One wouldsay that they wished to climb higher still. I will endeavour tosatisfy their desires.

I take a nine-foot reed, with tiny branches spreading right up tothe top, and place it above the cage. The little Lycosae clamberto the very summit. Here, longer threads are produced from therope-yard and are now left to float, anon converted into bridges bythe mere contact of the free end with the neighbouring supports.The rope-dancers embark upon them and form garlands which the leastbreath of air swings daintily. The thread is invisible when itdoes not come between the eyes and the sun; and the whole suggests rowsof Gnats dancing an aerial ballet.

Then, suddenly, teased by the air-currents, the delicate mooringbreaks and flies through space. Behold the emigrants off and away,clinging to their thread. If the wind be favourable, they canland at great distances. Their departure is thus continued fora week or two, in bands more or less numerous, according to the temperatureand the brightness of the day. If the sky be overcast, none dreamsof leaving. The travellers need the kisses of the sun, which giveenergy and vigour.

At last, the whole family has disappeared, carried afar by its flying-ropes.The mother remains alone. The loss of her offspring hardly seemsto distress her. She retains her usual colour and plumpness, whichis a sign that the maternal exertions have not been too much for her.

I also notice an increased fervour in the chase. While burdenedwith her family, she was remarkably abstemious, accepting only withgreat reserve the game placed at her disposal. The coldness ofthe season may have militated against copious refections; perhaps alsothe weight of the little ones hampered her movements and made her morediscreet in attacking the prey.

To-day, cheered by the fine weather and able to move freely, shehurries up from her lair each time I set a tit-bit to her liking buzzingat the entrance to her burrow; she comes and takes from my fingers thesavoury Locust, the portly Anoxia; { 26}and this performance is repeated daily, whenever I have the leisureto devote to it. After a frugal winter, the time has come forplentiful repasts.

This appetite tells us that the animal is not at the point of death;one does not feast in this way with a played-out stomach. My boardersare entering in full vigour upon their fourth year. In the winter,in the fields, I used to find large mothers, carting their young, andothers not much more than half their size. The whole series, therefore,represented three generations. And now, in my earthenware pans,after the departure of the family, the old matrons still carry on andcontinue as strong as ever. Every outward appearance tells usthat, after becoming great-grandmothers, they still keep themselvesfit for propagating their species.

The facts correspond with these anticipations. When Septemberreturns, my captives are dragging a bag as bulky as that of last year.For a long time, even when the eggs of the others have been hatchedfor some weeks past, the mothers come daily to the threshold of theburrow and hold out their wallets for incubation by the sun. Theirperseverance is not rewarded: nothing issues from the satin purse; nothingstirs within. Why? Because, in the prison of my cages, theeggs have had no father. Tired of waiting and at last recognizingthe barrenness of their produce, they push the bag of eggs outside theburrow and trouble about it no more. At the return of spring,by which time the family, if developed according to rule, would havebeen emancipated, they die. The mighty Spider of the waste-lands,therefore, attains to an even more patriarchal age than her neighbourthe Sacred Beetle: { 27}she lives for five years at the very least.

Let us leave the mothers to their business and return to the youngsters.It is not without a certain surprise that we see the little Lycosae,at the first moment of their emancipation, hasten to ascend the heights.Destined to live on the ground, amidst the short grass, and afterwardsto settle in the permanent abode, a pit, they start by being enthusiasticacrobats. Before descending to the low levels, their normal dwelling-place,they affect lofty altitudes.

To rise higher and ever higher is their first need. I havenot, it seems, exhausted the limit of their climbing-instinct even witha nine-foot pole, suitably furnished with branches to facilitate theescalade. Those who have eagerly reached the very top wave theirlegs, fumble in space as though for yet higher stalks. It behovesus to begin again and under better conditions.

Although the Narbonne Lycosa, with her temporary yearning for theheights, is more interesting than other Spiders, by reason of the factthat her usual habitation is underground, she is not so striking atswarming-time, because the youngsters, instead of all migrating at once,leave the mother at different periods and in small batches. Thesight will be a finer one with the common Garden or Cross Spider, theDiadem Epeira (Epeira diadema, LIN.), decorated with three whitecrosses on her back.

She lays her eggs in November and dies with the first cold snap.She is denied the Lycosa’s longevity. She leaves the natalwallet early one spring and never sees the following spring. Thiswallet, which contains the eggs, has none of the ingenious structurewhich we admired in the Banded and in the Silky Epeira. No longerdo we see a graceful balloon-shape nor yet a paraboloid with a starrybase; no longer a tough, waterproof satin stuff; no longer a swan’s-downresembling a fleecy, russet cloud; no longer an inner keg in which theeggs are packed. The art of stout fabrics and of walls withinwalls is unknown here.

The work of the Cross Spider is a pill of white silk, wrought intoa yielding felt, through which the new-born Spiders will easily worktheir way, without the aid of the mother, long since dead, and withouthaving to rely upon its bursting at the given hour. It is aboutthe size of a damson.

We can judge the method of manufacture from the structure.Like the Lycosa, whom we saw, in Chapter III., at work in one of myearthenware pans, the Cross Spider, on the support supplied by a fewthreads stretched between the nearest objects, begins by making a shallowsaucer of sufficient thickness to dispense with subsequent corrections.The process is easily guessed. The tip of the abdomen goes upand down, down and up with an even beat, while the worker shifts herplace a little. Each time, the spinnerets add a bit of threadto the carpet already made.

When the requisite thickness is obtained, the mother empties herovaries, in one continuous flow, into the centre of the bowl.Glued together by their inherent moisture, the eggs, of a handsome orange-yellow,form a ball-shaped heap. The work of the spinnerets is resumed.The ball of germs is covered with a silk cap, fashioned in the sameway as the saucer. The two halves of the work are so well joinedthat the whole constitutes an unbroken sphere.

The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira, those experts in the manufactureof rainproof textures, lay their eggs high up, on brushwood and bramble,without shelter of any kind. The thick material of the walletsis enough to protect the eggs from the inclemencies of the winter, especiallyfrom damp. The Diadem Epeira, or Cross Spider, needs a crannyfor hers, which is contained in a non-waterproof felt. In a heapof stones, well exposed to the sun, she will choose a large slab toserve as a roof. She lodges her pill underneath it, in the companyof the hibernating Snail.

More often still, she prefers the thick tangle of some dwarf shrub,standing eight or nine inches high and retaining its leaves in winter.In the absence of anything better, a tuft of grass answers the purpose.Whatever the hiding-place, the bag of eggs is always near the ground,tucked away as well as may be, amid the surrounding twigs.

Save in the case of the roof supplied by a large stone, we see thatthe site selected hardly satisfies proper hygienic needs. TheEpeira seems to realize this fact. By way of an additional protection,even under a stone, she never fails to make a thatched roof for hereggs. She builds them a covering with bits of fine, dry grass,joined together with a little silk. The abode of the eggs becomesa straw wigwam.

Good luck procures me two Cross Spiders’ nests, on the edgeof one of the paths in the enclosure, among some tufts of ground-cypress,or lavender-cotton. This is just what I wanted for my plans.The find is all the more valuable as the period of the exodus is nearat hand.

I prepare two lengths of bamboo, standing about fifteen feet highand clustered with little twigs from top to bottom. I plant oneof them straight up in the tuft, beside the first nest. I clearthe surrounding ground, because the bushy vegetation might easily, thanksto threads carried by the wind, divert the emigrants from the road whichI have laid out for them. The other bamboo I set up in the middleof the yard, all by itself, some few steps from any outstanding object.The second nest is removed as it is, shrub and all, and placed at thebottom of the tall, ragged distaff.

The events expected are not long in coming. In the first fortnightin May, a little earlier in one case, a little later in the other, thetwo families, each presented with a bamboo climbing-pole, leave theirrespective wallets. There is nothing remarkable about the modeof egress. The precincts to be crossed consist of a very slacknet-work, through which the outcomers wriggle: weak little orange-yellowbeasties, with a triangular black patch upon their sterns. Onemorning is long enough for the whole family to make its appearance.

By degrees, the emancipated youngsters climb the nearest twigs, clamberto the top, and spread a few threads. Soon, they gather in a compact,ball-shaped cluster, the size of a walnut. They remain motionless.With their heads plunged into the heap and their sterns projecting,they doze gently, mellowing under the kisses of the sun. Richin the possession of a thread in their belly as their sole inheritance,they prepare to disperse over the wide world.

Let us create a disturbance among the globular group by stirringit with a straw. All wake up at once. The cluster softlydilates and spreads, as though set in motion by some centrifugal force;it becomes a transparent orb wherein thousands and thousands of tinylegs quiver and shake, while threads are extended along the way to befollowed. The whole work resolves itself into a delicate veilwhich swallows up the scattered family. We then see an exquisitenebula against whose opalescent tapestry the tiny animals gleam liketwinkling orange stars.

This straggling state, though it last for hours, is but temporary.If the air grow cooler, if rain threaten, the spherical group reformsat once. This is a protective measure. On the morning aftera shower, I find the families on either bamboo in as good conditionas on the day before. The silk veil and the pill formation havesheltered them well enough from the downpour. Even so do Sheep,when caught in a storm in the pastures, gather close, huddle togetherand make a common rampart of their backs.

The assembly into a ball-shaped mass is also the rule in calm, brightweather, after the morning’s exertions. In the afternoon,the climbers collect at a higher point, where they weave a wide, conicaltent, with the end of a shoot for its top, and, gathered into a compactgroup, spend the night there. Next day, when the heat returns,the ascent is resumed in long files, following the shrouds which a fewpioneers have rigged and which those who come after elaborate with theirown work.

Collected nightly into a globular troop and sheltered under a freshtent, for three or four days, each morning, before the sun grows toohot, my little emigrants thus raise themselves, stage by stage, on bothbamboos, until they reach the sun-unit, at fifteen feet above the ground.The climb comes to an end for lack of foothold.

Under normal conditions, the ascent would be shorter. The youngSpiders have at their disposal the bushes, the brushwood, providingsupports on every side for the threads wafted hither and thither bythe eddying air-currents. With these rope-bridges flung acrossspace, the dispersal presents no difficulties. Each emigrant leavesat his own good time and travels as suits him best.

My devices have changed these conditions somewhat. My two bristlingpoles stand at a distance from the surrounding shrubs, especially theone which I planted in the middle of the yard. Bridges are outof the question, for the threads flung into the air are not long enough.And so the acrobats, eager to get away, keep on climbing, never comedown again, are impelled to seek in a higher position what they havefailed to find in a lower. The top of my two bamboos probablyfails to represent the limit of what my keen climbers are capable ofachieving.

We shall see, in a moment, the object of this climbing-propensity,which is a sufficiently remarkable instinct in the Garden Spiders, whohave as their domain the low-growing brushwood wherein their nets arespread; it becomes a still more remarkable instinct in the Lycosa, who,except at the moment when she leaves her mother’s back, neverquits the ground and yet, in the early hours of her life, shows herselfas ardent a wooer of high places as the young Garden Spiders.

Let us consider the Lycosa in particular. In her, at the momentof the exodus, a sudden instinct arises, to disappear, as promptly andfor ever, a few hours later. This is the climbing-instinct, whichis unknown to the adult and soon forgotten by the emancipated youngling,doomed to wander homeless, for many a long day, upon the ground.Neither of them dreams of climbing to the top of a grass-stalk.The full-grown Spider hunts trapper-fashion, ambushed in her tower;the young one hunts afoot through the scrubby grass. In both casesthere is no web and therefore no need for lofty contact-points.They are not allowed to quit the ground and climb the heights.

Yet here we have the young Lycosa, wishing to leave the maternalabode and to travel far afield by the easiest and swiftest methods,suddenly becoming an enthusiastic climber. Impetuously she scalesthe wire trellis of the cage where she was born; hurriedly she clambersto the top of the tall mast which I have prepared for her. Inthe same way, she would make for the summit of the bushes in her waste-land.

We catch a glimpse of her object. From on high, finding a widespace beneath her, she sends a thread floating. It is caught bythe wind and carries her hanging to it. We have our aeroplanes;she too possesses her flying-machine. Once the journey is accomplished,naught remains of this ingenious business. The climbing-instinctconies suddenly, at the hour of need, and no less suddenly vanishes.

CHAPTER VII: THE SPIDERS’ EXODUS

Seeds, when ripened in the fruit, are disseminated, that is to say,scattered on the surface of the ground, to sprout in spots as yet unoccupiedand fill the expanses that realize favourable conditions.

Amid the wayside rubbish grows one of the gourd family, Ecbaliumelaterium, commonly called the squirting cucumber, whose fruit—arough and extremely bitter little cucumber—is the size of a date.When ripe, the fleshy core resolves into a liquid in which float theseeds. Compressed by the elastic rind of the fruit, this liquidbears upon the base of the footstalk, which is gradually forced out,yields like a stopper, breaks off and leaves an orifice through whicha stream of seeds and fluid pulp is suddenly ejected. If, witha novice hand, under a scorching sun, you shake the plant laden withyellow fruit, you are bound to be somewhat startled when you hear anoise among the leaves and receive the cucumber’s grapeshot inyour face.

The fruit of the garden balsam, when ripe, splits, at the least touch,into five fleshy valves, which curl up and shoot their seeds to a distance.The botanical name of Impatiensgiven to the balsam alludes tothis sudden dehiscence of the capsules, which cannot endure contactwithout bursting.

In the damp and shady places of the woods there exists a plant ofthe same family which, for similar reasons, bears the even more expressivename of Impatiens noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not.

The capsule of the pansy expands into three valves, each scoopedout like a boat and laden in the middle with two rows of seeds.When these valves dry, the edges shrivel, press upon the grains andeject them.

Light seeds, especially those of the order of Compositae, have aeronauticapparatus—tufts, plumes, fly-wheels—which keep them up inthe air and enable them to take distant voyages. In this way,at the least breath, the seeds of the dandelion, surmounted by a tuftof feathers, fly from their dry receptacle and waft gently in the air.

Next to the tuft, the wing is the most satisfactory contrivance fordissemination by wind. Thanks to their membranous edge, whichgives them the appearance of thin scales, the seeds of the yellow wall-flowerreach high cornices of buildings, clefts of inaccessible rocks, cranniesin old walls, and sprout in the remnant of mould bequeathed by the mossesthat were there before them.

The samaras, or keys, of the elm, formed of a broad, light fan withthe seed cased in its centre; those of the maple, joined in pairs andresembling the unfurled wings of a bird; those of the ash, carved likethe blade of an oar, perform the most distant journeys when driven beforethe storm.

Like the plant, the insect also sometimes possesses travelling-apparatus,means of dissemination that allow large families to disperse quicklyover the country, so that each member may have his place in the sunwithout injuring his neighbour; and these apparatus, these methods viein ingenuity with the elm’s samara, the dandelion-plume and thecatapult of the squirting cucumber.

Let us consider, in particular, the Epeirae, those magnificent Spiderswho, to catch their prey, stretch, between one bush and the next, greatvertical sheets of meshes, resembling those of the fowler. Themost remarkable in my district is the Banded Epeira (Epeira fasciata,WALCK.), so prettily belted with yellow, black and silvery white.Her nest, a marvel of gracefulness, is a satin bag, shaped like a tinypear. Its neck ends in a concave mouthpiece closed with a lid,also of satin. Brown ribbons, in fanciful meridian waves, adornthe object from pole to pole.

Open the nest. We have seen, in an earlier chapter, { 28}what we find there; let us retell the story. Under the outer wrapper,which is as stout as our woven stuffs and, moreover, perfectly waterproof,is a russet eiderdown of exquisite delicacy, a silky fluff resemblingdriven smoke. Nowhere does mother-love prepare a softer bed.

In the middle of this downy mass hangs a fine, silk, thimble-shapedpurse, closed with a movable lid. This contains the eggs, of apretty orange-yellow and about five hundred in number.

All things considered, is not this charming edifice an animal fruit,a germ-casket, a capsule to be compared with that of the plants?Only, the Epeira’s wallet, instead of seeds, holds eggs.The difference is more apparent than real, for egg and grain are one.

How will this living fruit, ripening in the heat beloved of the Cicadae,manage to burst? How, above all, will dissemination take place?They are there in their hundreds. They must separate, go far away,isolate themselves in a spot where there is not too much fear of competitionamong neighbours. How will they set to work to achieve this distantexodus, weaklings that they are, taking such very tiny steps?

I receive the first answer from another and much earlier Epeira,whose family I find, at the beginning of May, on a yucca in the enclosure.The plant blossomed last year. The branching flower-stem, somethree feet high, still stands erect, though withered. On the greenleaves, shaped like a sword-blade, swarm two newly-hatched families.The wee beasties are a dull yellow, with a triangular black patch upontheir stern. Later on, three white crosses, ornamenting the back,will tell me that my find corresponds with the Cross or Diadem Spider(Epeira diadema, WALCK.).

When the sun reaches this part of the enclosure, one of the two groupsfalls into a great state of flutter. Nimble acrobats that theyare, the little Spiders scramble up, one after the other, and reachthe top of the stem. Here, marches and countermarches, tumultand confusion reign, for there is a slight breeze which throws the troopinto disorder. I see no connected manoeuvres. From the topof the stalk they set out at every moment, one by one; they dart offsuddenly; they fly away, so to speak. It is as though they hadthe wings of a Gnat.

Forthwith they disappear from view. Nothing that my eyes cansee explains this strange flight; for precise observation is impossibleamid the disturbing influences out of doors. What is wanted isa peaceful atmosphere and the quiet of my study.

I gather the family in a large box, which I close at once, and instalit in the animals’ laboratory, on a small table, two steps fromthe open window. Apprised by what I have just seen of their propensityto resort to the heights, I give my subjects a bundle of twigs, eighteeninches tall, as a climbing-pole. The whole band hurriedly clambersup and reaches the top. In a few moments there is not one lackingin the group on high. The future will tell us the reason of thisassemblage on the projecting tips of the twigs.

The little Spiders are now spinning here and there at random: theygo up, go down, come up again. Thus is woven a light veil of divergentthreads, a many-cornered web with the end of the branch for its summitand the edge of the table for its base, some eighteen inches wide.This veil is the drill-ground, the work-yard where the preparationsfor departure are made.

Here hasten the humble little creatures, running indefatigably toand fro. When the sun shines upon them, they become gleaming specksand form upon the milky background of the veil a sort of constellation,a reflex of those remote points in the sky where the telescope showsus endless galaxies of stars. The immeasurably small and the immeasurablylarge are alike in appearance. It is all a matter of distance.

But the living nebula is not composed of fixed stars; on the contrary,its specks are in continual movement. The young Spiders nevercease shifting their position on the web. Many let themselvesdrop, hanging by a length of thread, which the faller’s weightdraws from the spinnerets. Then quickly they climb up again bythe same thread, which they wind gradually into a skein and lengthenby successive falls. Others confine themselves to running aboutthe web and also give me the impression of working at a bundle of ropes.

The thread, as a matter of fact, does not flow from the spinneret;it is drawn thence with a certain effort. It is a case of extraction,not emission. To obtain her slender cord, the Spider has to moveabout and haul, either by falling or by walking, even as the rope-makersteps backwards when working his hemp. The activity now displayedon the drill-ground is a preparation for the approaching dispersal.The travellers are packing up.

Soon we see a few Spiders trotting briskly between the table andthe open window. They are running in mid-air. But on what?If the light fall favourably, I manage to see, at moments, behind thetiny animal, a thread resembling a ray of light, which appears for aninstant, gleams and disappears. Behind, therefore, there is amooring, only just perceptible, if you look very carefully; but, infront, towards the window, there is nothing to be seen at all.

In vain I examine above, below, at the side; in vain I vary the directionof the eye: I can distinguish no support for the little creature towalk upon. One would think that the beastie were paddling in space.It suggests the idea of a small bird, tied by the leg with a threadand making a flying rush forwards.

But, in this case, appearances are deceptive: flight is impossible;the Spider must necessarily have a bridge whereby to cross the interveningspace. This bridge, which I cannot see, I can at least destroy.I cleave the air with a ruler in front of the Spider making for thewindow. That is quite enough: the tiny animal at once ceases togo forward and falls. The invisible foot-plank is broken.My son, young Paul, who is helping me, is astounded at this wave ofthe magic wand, for not even he, with his fresh, young eyes, is ableto see a support ahead for the Spiderling to move along.

In the rear, on the other hand, a thread is visible. The differenceis easily explained. Every Spider, as she goes, at the same timespins a safety-cord which will guard the rope-walker against the riskof an always possible fall. In the rear, therefore, the threadis of double thickness and can be seen, whereas, in front, it is stillsingle and hardly perceptible to the eye.

Obviously, this invisible foot-bridge is not flung out by the animal:it is carried and unrolled by a gust of air. The Epeira, suppliedwith this line, lets it float freely; and the wind, however softly blowing,bears it along and unwinds it. Even so is the smoke from the bowlof a pipe whirled up in the air.

This floating thread has but to touch any object in the neighbourhoodand it will remain fixed to it. The suspension-bridge is thrown;and the Spider can set out. The South-American Indians are saidto cross the abysses of the Cordilleras in travelling-cradles made oftwisted creepers; the little Spider passes through space on the invisibleand the imponderable.

But to carry the end of the floating thread elsewhither a draughtis needed. At this moment, the draught exists between the doorof my study and the window, both of which are open. It is so slightthat I do not feel its; I only know of it by the smoke from my pipe,curling softly in that direction. Cold air enters from withoutthrough the door; warm air escapes from the room through the window.This is the drought that carries the threads with it and enables theSpiders to embark upon their journey.

I get rid of it by closing both apertures and I break off any communicationby passing my ruler between the window and the table. Henceforth,in the motionless atmosphere, there are no departures. The currentof air is missing, the skeins are not unwound and migration becomesimpossible.

It is soon resumed, but in a direction whereof I never dreamt.The hot sun is beating on a certain part of the floor. At thisspot, which is warmer than the rest, a column of lighter, ascendingair is generated. If this column catch the threads, my Spidersought to rise to the ceiling of the room.

The curious ascent does, in fact, take place. Unfortunately,my troop, which has been greatly reduced by the number of departuresthrough the window, does not lend itself to prolonged experiment.We must begin again.

The next morning, on the same yucca, I gather the second family,as numerous as the first. Yesterday’s preparations are repeated.My legion of Spiders first weaves a divergent framework between thetop of the brushwood placed at the emigrants’ disposal and theedge of the table. Five or six hundred wee beasties swarm allover this work-yard.

While this little world is busily fussing, making its arrangementsfor departure, I make my own. Every aperture in the room is closed,so as to obtain as calm an atmosphere as possible. A small chafing-dishis lit at the foot of the table. My hands cannot feel the heatof it at the level of the web whereon my Spiders are weaving.This is the very modest fire which, with its column of rising air, shallunwind the threads and carry them on high.

Let us first enquire the direction and strength of the current.Dandelion-plumes, made lighter by the removal of their seeds, serveas my guides. Released above the chafing-dish, on the level ofthe table, they float slowly upwards and, for the most part, reach theceiling. The emigrants’ lines should rise in the same wayand even better.

The thing is done: with the aid of nothing that is visible to thethree of us looking on, a Spider makes her ascent. She ambleswith her eight legs through the air; she mounts, gently swaying.The others, in ever-increasing numbers, follow, sometimes by differentroads, sometimes by the same road. Any one who did not possessthe secret would stand amazed at this magic ascent without a ladder.In a few minutes, most of them are up, clinging to the ceiling.

Not all of them reach it. I see some who, on attaining a certainheight, cease to go up and even lose ground, although moving their legsforward with all the nimbleness of which they are capable. Themore they struggle upwards, the faster they come down. This drifting,which neutralizes the distance covered and even converts it into a retrogression,is easily explained.

The thread has not reached the platform; it floats, it is fixed onlyat the lower end. As long as it is of a fair length, it is able,although moving, to bear the minute animal’s weight. But,as the Spider climbs, the float becomes shorter in proportion; and thetime comes when a balance is struck between the ascensional force ofthe thread and the weight carried. Then the beastie remains stationary,although continuing to climb.

Presently, the weight becomes too much for the shorter and shorterfloat; and the Spider slips down, in spite of her persistent, forwardstriving. She is at last brought back to the branch by the fallingthreads. Here, the ascent is soon renewed, either on a fresh thread,if the supply of silk be not yet exhausted, or on a strange thread,the work, of those who have gone before.

As a rule, the ceiling is reached. It is twelve feet high.The little Spider is able, therefore, as the first product of her spinning-mill,before taking any refreshment, to obtain a line fully twelve feet inlength. And all this, the rope-maker and her rope, was containedin the egg, a particle of no size at all. To what a degree offineness can the silky matter be wrought wherewith the young Spideris provided! Our manufacturers are able to turn out platinum-wirethat can only be seen when it is made red-hot. With much simplermeans, the Spiderling draws from her wire-mill threads so delicate that,even the brilliant light of the sun does not always enable us to discernthem.

We must not let all the climbers be stranded on the ceiling, an inhospitableregion where most of them will doubtless perish, being unable to producea second thread before they have had a meal. I open the window.A current of lukewarm air, coming from the chafing-dish, escapes throughthe top. Dandelion-plumes, taking that direction, tell me so.The wafting threads cannot fail to be carried by this flow of air andto lengthen out in the open, where a light breeze is blowing.

I take a pair of sharp scissors and, without shaking the threads,cut a few that are just visible at the base, where they are thickenedwith an added strand. The result of this operation is marvellous.Hanging to the flying-rope, which is borne on the wind outside, theSpider passes through the window, suddenly flies off and disappears.An easy way of travelling, if the conveyance possessed a rudder thatallowed the passenger to land where he pleases! But the littlethings are at the mercy of the winds: where will they alight?Hundreds, thousands of yards away, perhaps. Let us wish them aprosperous journey.

The problem of dissemination is now solved. What would happenif matters, instead of being brought about by my wiles, took place inthe open fields? The answer is obvious. The young Spiders,born acrobats and rope-walkers, climb to the top of a branch so as tofind sufficient space below them to unfurl their apparatus. Here,each draws from her rope-factory a thread which she abandons to theeddies of the air. Gently raised by the currents that ascend fromthe ground warmed by the sun, this thread wafts upwards, floats, undulates,makes for its point of contact. At last, it breaks and vanishesin the distance, carrying the spinstress hanging to it.

The Epeira with the three white crosses, the Spider who has suppliedus with these first data concerning the process of dissemination, isendowed with a moderate maternal industry. As a receptacle forthe eggs, she weaves a mere pill of silk. Her work is modest indeedbeside the Banded Epeira’s balloons. I looked to these tosupply me with fuller documents. I had laid up a store by rearingsome mothers during the autumn. So that nothing of importancemight escape me, I divided my stock of balloons, most of which werewoven before my eyes, into two sections. One half remained inmy study, under a wire-gauze cover, with, small bunches of brushwoodas supports; the other half were experiencing the vicissitudes of open-airlife on the rosemaries in the enclosure.

These preparations, which promised so well, did not provide me withthe sight which I expected, namely, a magnificent exodus, worthy ofthe tabernacle occupied. However, a few results, not devoid ofinterest, are to be noted. Let us state them briefly.

The hatching takes place as March approaches. When this timecomes, let us open the Banded Epeira’s nest with the scissors.We shall find that some of the youngsters have already left the centralchamber and scattered over the surrounding eiderdown, while the restof the laying still consists of a compact mass of orange eggs.The appearance of the younglings is not simultaneous; it takes placewith intermissions and may last a couple of weeks.

Nothing as yet suggests the future, richly-striped livery.The abdomen is white and, as it were, floury in the front half; in theother half it is a blackish-brown. The rest of the body is pale-yellow,except in front, where the eyes form a black edging. When leftalone, the little ones remain motionless in the soft, russet swan’s-down;if disturbed, they shuffle lazily where they are, or even walk aboutin a hesitating and unsteady fashion. One can see that they haveto ripen before venturing outside.

Maturity is achieved in the exquisite floss that surrounds the natalchamber and fills out the balloon. This is the waiting-room inwhich the body hardens. All dive into it as and when they emergefrom the central keg. They will not leave it until four monthslater, when the midsummer heats have come.

Their number is considerable. A patient and careful censusgives me nearly six hundred. And all this comes out of a purseno larger than a pea. By what miracle is there room for such afamily? How do those thousands of legs manage to grow withoutstraining themselves?

The egg-bag, as we learnt in Chapter II., is a short cylinder roundedat the bottom. It is formed of compact white satin, an insuperablebarrier. It opens into a round orifice wherein is bedded a lidof the same material, through which the feeble beasties would be incapableof passing. It is not a porous felt, but a fabric as tough asthat of the sack. Then by what mechanism is the delivery effected?

Observe that the disk of the lid doubles back into a short fold,which edges into the orifice of the bag. In the same way, thelid of a saucepan fits the mouth by means of a projecting rim, withthis difference, that the rim is not attached to the saucepan, whereas,in the Epeira’s work, it is soldered to the bag or nest.Well, at the time of the hatching, this disk becomes unstuck, liftsand allows the new-born Spiders to pass through.

If the rim were movable and simply inserted, if, moreover, the birthof all the family took place at the same time, we might think that thedoor is forced open by the living wave of inmates, who would set theirbacks to it with a common effort. We should find an approximateimage in the case of the saucepan, whose lid is raised by the boilingof its contents. But the fabric of the cover is one with the fabricof the bag, the two are closely welded; besides, the hatching is effectedin small batches, incapable of the least exertion. There must,therefore, be a spontaneous bursting, or dehiscence, independent ofthe assistance of the youngsters and similar to that of the seed-podsof plants.

When fully ripened, the dry fruit of the snap-dragon opens threewindows; that of the pimpernel splits into two rounded halves, somethinglike those of the outer case of a fob-watch; the fruit of the carnationpartly unseals its valves and opens at the top into a star-shaped hatch.Each seed-casket has its own system of locks, which are made to worksmoothly by the mere kiss of the sun.

Well, that other dry fruit, the Banded Epeira’s germ-box, likewisepossesses its bursting-gear. As long as the eggs remain unhatched,the door, solidly fixed in its frame, holds good; as soon as the littleones swarm and want to get out, it opens of itself.

Come June and July, beloved of the Cicadae, no less beloved of theyoung Spiders who are anxious to be off. It were difficult indeedfor them to work their way through the thick shell of the balloon.For the second time, a spontaneous dehiscence seems called for.Where will it be effected?

The idea occurs off-hand that it will take place along the edgesof the top cover. Remember the details given in an earlier chapter.The neck of the balloon ends in a wide crater, which is closed by aceiling dug out cup-wise. The material is as stout in this partas in any other; but, as the lid was the finishing touch to the work,we expect to find an incomplete soldering, which would allow it to beunfastened.

The method of construction deceives us: the ceiling is immovable;at no season can my forceps manage to extract it, without destroyingthe building from top to bottom. The dehiscence takes place elsewhere,at some point on the sides. Nothing informs us, nothing suggeststo us that it will occur at one place rather than another.

Moreover, to tell the truth, it is not a dehiscence prepared by meansof some dainty piece of mechanism; it is a very irregular tear.Somewhat sharply, under the fierce heat of the sun, the satin burstslike the rind of an over-ripe pomegranate. Judging by the result,we think of the expansion of the air inside, which, heated by the sun,causes this rupture. The signs of pressure from within are manifest:the tatters of the torn fabric are turned outwards; also, a wisp ofthe russet eiderdown that fills the wallet invariably straggles throughthe breach. In the midst of the protruding floss, the Spiderlings,expelled from their home by the explosion, are in frantic commotion.

The balloons of the Banded Epeira are bombs which, to free theircontents, burst under the rays of a torrid sun. To break theyneed the fiery heat-waves of the dog-days. When kept in the moderateatmosphere of my study, most of them do not open and the emergence ofthe young does not take place, unless I myself I have a hand in thebusiness; a few others open with a round hole, a hole so neat that itmight have been made with a punch. This aperture is the work ofthe prisoners, who, relieving one another in turns, have, with a patienttooth, bitten through the stuff of the jar at some point or other.

When exposed to the full force of the sun, however, on the rosemariesin the enclosure, the balloons burst and shoot forth a ruddy flood offloss and tiny animals. That is how things occur in the free sun-bathof the fields. Unsheltered, among the bushes, the wallet of theBanded Epeira, when the July heat arrives, splits under the effort ofthe inner air. The delivery is effected by an explosion of thedwelling.

A very small part of the family are expelled with the flow of tawnyfloss; the vast majority remain in the bag, which is ripped open, butstill bulges with eiderdown. Now that the breach is made, anyone can go out who pleases, in his own good time, without hurrying.Besides, a solemn action has to be performed before the emigration.The animal must cast its skin; and the moult is an event that does notfall on the same date for all. The evacuation of the place, therefore,lasts several days. It is effected in small squads, as the sloughis flung aside.

Those who sally forth climb up the neighbouring twigs and there,in the full heat of the sun, proceed with the work of dissemination.The method is the same as that which we saw in the case of the CrossSpider. The spinnerets abandon to the breeze a thread that floats,breaks and flies away, carrying the rope-maker with it. The numberof starters on any one morning is so small as to rob the spectacle ofthe greater part of its interest. The scene lacks animation becauseof the absence of a crowd.

To my intense disappointment, the Silky Epeira does not either indulgein a tumultuous and dashing exodus. Let me remind you of her handiwork,the handsomest of the maternal wallets, next to the Banded Epeira’s.It is an obtuse conoid, closed with a star-shaped disk. It ismade of a stouter and especially a thicker material than the BandedEpeira’s balloon, for which reason a spontaneous rupture becomesmore necessary than ever.

This rupture is effected at the sides of the bag, not far from theedge of the lid. Like the ripping of the balloon, it requiresthe rough aid of the heat of July. Its mechanism also seems towork by the expansion of the heated air, for we again see a partialemission of the silky floss that fills the pouch.

The exit of the family is performed in a single group and, this time,before the moult, perhaps for lack of the space necessary for the delicatecasting of the skin. The conical bag falls far short of the balloonin size; those packed within would sprain their legs in extracting themfrom their sheaths. The family, therefore, emerges in a body andsettles on a sprig hard by.

This is a temporary camping-ground, where, spinning in unison, theyoungsters soon weave an open-work tent, the abode of a week, or thereabouts.The moult is effected in this lounge of intersecting threads.The sloughed skins form a heap at the bottom of the dwelling; on thetrapezes above, the flaylings take exercise and gain strength and vigour.Finally, when maturity is attained, they set out, now these, now those,little by little and always cautiously. There are no audaciousflights on the thready airship; the journey is accomplished by modeststages.

Hanging to her thread, the Spider lets herself drop straight down,to a depth of nine or ten inches. A breath of air sets her swinginglike a pendulum, sometimes drives her against a neighbouring branch.This is a step towards the dispersal. At the point reached, thereis a fresh fall, followed by a fresh pendulous swing that lands hera little farther afield. Thus, in short tacks, for the threadis never very long, does the Spiderling go about, seeing the country,until she comes to a place that suits her. Should the wind blowat all hard, the voyage is cut short: the cable of the pendulum breaksand the beastie is carried for some distance on its cord.

To sum up, although, on the whole, the tactics of the exodus remainmuch the same, the two spinstresses of my region best-versed in theart of weaving mothers’ wallets failed to come up to my expectations.I went to the trouble of rearing them, with disappointing results.Where shall I find again the wonderful spectacle which the Cross Spideroffered me by chance? I shall find it—in an even more strikingfashion—among humbler Spiders, whom I had neglected to observe.

CHAPTER VIII: THE CRAB SPIDER

The Spider that showed me the exodus in all its magnificence is knownofficially as Thomisus onustus, WALCK. Though the namesuggest nothing to the reader’s mind, it has the advantage, atany rate, of hurting neither the throat nor the ear, as is too oftenthe case with scientific nomenclature, which sounds more like sneezingthan articulate speech. Since it is the rule to dignify plantsand animals with a Latin label, let us at least respect the euphonyof the classics and refrain from harsh splutters which spit out a nameinstead of pronouncing it.

What will posterity do in face of the rising tide of a barbarousvocabulary which, under the pretence of progress, stifles real knowledge?It will relegate the whole business to the quagmire of oblivion.But what will never disappear is the popular name, which sounds well,is picturesque and conveys some sort of information. Such is theterm Crab Spider, applied by the ancients to the group to which theThomisus belongs, a pretty accurate term, for, in this case, there isan evident analogy between the Spider and the Crustacean.

Like the Crab, the Thomisus walks sideways; she also has forelegsstronger than her hind-legs. The only thing wanting to completethe resemblance is the front pair of stone gauntlets, raised in theattitude of self-defence.

The Spider with the Crab-like figure does not know how to manufacturenets for catching game. Without springs or snares, she lies inambush, among the flowers, and awaits the arrival of the quarry, whichshe kills by administering a scientific stab in the neck. TheThomisus, in particular, the subject of this chapter, is passionatelyaddicted to the pursuit of the Domestic Bee. I have describedthe contests between the victim and her executioner, at greater length,elsewhere.

The Bee appears, seeking no quarrel, intent upon plunder. Shetests the flowers with her tongue; she selects a spot that will yielda good return. Soon she is wrapped up in her harvesting.While she is filling her baskets and distending her crop, the Thomisus,that bandit lurking under cover of the flowers, issues from her hiding-place,creeps round behind the bustling insect, steals up close and, with asudden rush, nabs her in the nape of the neck. In vain, the Beeprotests and darts her sting at random; the assailant does not let go.

Besides, the bite in the neck is paralysing, because the cervicalnerve-centres are affected. The poor thing’s legs stiffen;and all is over in a second. The murderess now sucks the victim’sblood at her ease and, when she has done, scornfully flings the drainedcorpse aside. She hides herself once more, ready to bleed a secondgleaner should the occasion offer.

This slaughter of the Bee engaged in the hallowed delights of labourhas always revolted me. Why should there be workers to feed idlers,why sweated to keep sweaters in luxury? Why should so many admirablelives be sacrificed to the greater prosperity of brigandage? Thesehateful discords amid the general harmony perplex the thinker, all themore as we shall see the cruel vampire become a model of devotion whereher family is concerned.

The ogre loved his children; he ate the children of others.Under the tyranny of the stomach, we are all of us, beasts and men alike,ogres. The dignity of labour, the joy of life, maternal affection,the terrors of death: all these do not count, in others; the main pointis that morsel the be tender and savoury.

According to the etymology of her name—θωμιγξ,a cord—the Thomisus should be like the ancient lictor, who boundthe sufferer to the stake. The comparison is not inappropriateas regards many Spiders who tie their prey with a thread to subdue itand consume it at their ease; but it just happens that the Thomisusis at variance with her label. She does not fasten her Bee, who,dying suddenly of a bite in the neck, offers no resistance to her consumer.Carried away by his recollection of the regular tactics, our Spider’sgodfather overlooked the exception; he did not know of the perfidiousmode of attack which renders the use of a bow-string superfluous.

Nor is the second name of onustus—loaded, burdened,freighted—any too happily chosen. The fact that the Bee-huntresscarries a heavy paunch is no reason to refer to this as a distinctivecharacteristic. Nearly all Spiders have a voluminous belly, asilk-warehouse where, in some cases, the rigging of the net, in others,the swan’s-down of the nest is manufactured. The Thomisus,a first-class nest-builder, does like the rest: she hoards in her abdomen,but without undue display of obesity, the wherewithal to house her familysnugly.

Can the expression onustusrefer simply to her slow and sidelongwalk? The explanation appeals to me, without satisfying me fully.Except in the case of a sudden alarm, every Spider maintains a sobergait and a wary pace. When all is said, the scientific term iscomposed of a misconception and a worthless epithet. How difficultit is to name animals rationally! Let us be indulgent to the nomenclator:the dictionary is becoming exhausted and the constant flood that requirescataloguing mounts incessantly, wearing out our combinations of syllables.

As the technical name tells the reader nothing, how shall he be informed?I see but one means, which is to invite him to the May festivals, inthe waste-lands of the South. The murderess of the Bees is ofa chilly constitution; in our parts, she hardly ever moves away fromthe olive-districts. Her favourite shrub is the white-leaved rock-rose(Cistus albidus), with the large, pink, crumpled, ephemeral bloomsthat last but a morning and are replaced, next day, by fresh flowers,which have blossomed in the cool dawn. This glorious efflorescencegoes on for five or six weeks.

Here, the Bees plunder enthusiastically, fussing and bustling inthe spacious whorl of the stamens, which beflour them with yellow.Their persecutrix knows of this affluence. She posts herself inher watch-house, under the rosy screen of a petal. Cast your eyesover the flower, more or less everywhere. If you see a Bee lyinglifeless, with legs and tongue out-stretched, draw nearer: the Thomisuswill be there, nine times out of ten. The thug has struck herblow; she is draining the blood of the departed.

After all, this cutter of Bees’ throats is a pretty, a verypretty creature, despite her unwieldy paunch fashioned like a squatpyramid and embossed on the base, on either side, with a pimple shapedlike a camel’s hump. The skin, more pleasing to the eyethan any satin, is milk-white in some, in others lemon-yellow.There are fine ladies among them who adorn their legs with a numberof pink bracelets and their back with carmine arabesques. A narrowpale-green ribbon sometimes edges the right and left of the breast.It is not so rich as the costume of the Banded Epeira, but much moreelegant because of its soberness, its daintiness and the artful blendingof its hues. Novice fingers, which shrink from touching any otherSpider, allow themselves to be enticed by these attractions; they donot fear to handle the beauteous Thomisus, so gentle in appearance.

Well, what can this gem among Spiders do? In the first place,she makes a nest worthy of its architect. With twigs and horse-hairand bits of wool, the Goldfinch, the Chaffinch and other masters ofthe builder’s art construct an aerial bower in the fork of thebranches. Herself a lover of high places, the Thomisus selectsas the site of her nest one of the upper twigs of the rock-rose, herregular hunting-ground, a twig withered by the heat and possessing afew dead leaves, which curl into a little cottage. This is whereshe settles with a view to her eggs.

Ascending and descending with a gentle swing in more or less everydirection, the living shuttle, swollen with silk, weaves a bag whoseouter casing becomes one with the dry leaves around. The work,which is partly visible and partly hidden by its supports, is a puredead-white. Its shape, moulded in the angular interval betweenthe bent leaves, is that of a cone and reminds us, on a smaller scale,of the nest of the Silky Epeira.

When the eggs are laid, the mouth of the receptacle is hermeticallyclosed with a lid of the same white silk. Lastly, a few threads,stretched like a thin curtain, form a canopy above the nest and, withthe curved tips of the leaves, frame a sort of alcove wherein the mothertakes up her abode.

It is more than a place of rest after the fatigues of her confinement:it is a guard-room, an inspection-post where the mother remains sprawlinguntil the youngsters’ exodus. Greatly emaciated by the layingof her eggs and by her expenditure of silk, she lives only for the protectionof her nest.

Should some vagrant pass near by, she hurries from her watch-tower,lifts a limb and puts the intruder to flight. If I tease her witha straw, she parries with big gestures, like those of a prize-fighter.She uses her fists against my weapon. When I propose to dislodgeher in view of certain experiments, I find some difficulty in doingso. She clings to the silken floor, she frustrates my attacks,which I am bound to moderate lest I should injure her. She isno sooner attracted outside than she stubbornly returns to her post.She declines to leave her treasure.

Even so does the Narbonne Lycosa struggle when we try to take awayher pill. Each displays the same pluck and the same devotion;and also the same denseness in distinguishing her property from thatof others. The Lycosa accepts without hesitation any strange pillwhich she is, given in exchange for her own; she confuses alien producewith the produce of her ovaries and her silk-factory. Those hallowedwords, maternal love, were out of place here: it is an impetuous, analmost mechanical impulse, wherein real affection plays no part whatever.The beautiful Spider of the rock-roses is no more generously endowed.When moved from her nest to another of the same kind, she settles uponit and never stirs from it, even though the different arrangement ofthe leafy fence be such as to warn her that she is not really at home.Provided that she have satin under her feet, she does not notice hermistake; she watches over another’s nest with the same vigilancewhich she might show in watching over her own.

The Lycosa surpasses her in maternal blindness. She fastensto her spinnerets and dangles, by way of a bag of eggs, a ball of corkpolished with my file, a paper pellet, a little ball of thread.In order to discover if the Thomisus is capable of a similar error,I gathered some broken pieces of silk-worm’s cocoon into a closedcone, turning the fragments so as to bring the smoother and more delicateinner surface outside. My attempt was unsuccessful. Whenremoved from her home and placed on the artificial wallet, the motherThomisus obstinately refused to settle there. Can she be moreclear-sighted than the Lycosa? Perhaps so. Let us not betoo extravagant with our praise, however; the imitation of the bag wasa very clumsy one.

The work of laying is finished by the end of May, after which, lyingflat on the ceiling of her nest, the mother never leaves her guard-room,either by night or day. Seeing her look so thin and wrinkled,I imagine that I can please her by bringing her a provision of Bees,as I was wont to do. I have misjudged her needs. The Bee,hitherto her favourite dish, tempts her no longer. In vain doesthe prey buzz close by, an easy capture within the cage: the watcherdoes not shift from her post, takes no notice of the windfall.She lives exclusively upon maternal devotion, a commendable but unsubstantialfare. And so I see her pining away from day to day, becoming moreand more wrinkled. What is the withered thing waiting for, beforeexpiring? She is waiting for her children to emerge; the dyingcreature is still of use to them.

When the Banded Epeira’s little ones issue from their balloon,they have long been orphans. There is none to come to their assistance;and they have not the strength to free themselves unaided. Theballoon has to split automatically and to scatter the youngsters andtheir flossy mattress all mixed up together. The Thomisus’wallet, sheathed in leaves over the greater part of its surface, neverbursts; nor does the lid rise, so carefully is it sealed down.Nevertheless, after the delivery of the brood, we see, at the edge ofthe lid, a small, gaping hole, an exit-window. Who contrived thiswindow, which was not there at first?

The fabric is too thick and tough to have yielded to the twitchesof the feeble little prisoners. It was the mother, therefore,who, feeling her offspring shuffle impatiently under the silken ceiling,herself made a hole in the bag. She persists in living for fiveor six weeks, despite her shattered health, so as to give a last helpinghand and open the door for her family. After performing this duty,she gently lets herself die, hugging her nest and turning into a shrivelledrelic.

When July comes, the little ones emerge. In view of their acrobatichabits, I have placed a bundle of slender twigs at the top of the cagein which they were born. All of them pass through the wire gauzeand form a group on the summit of the brushwood, where they swiftlyweave a spacious lounge of criss-cross threads. Here they remain,pretty quietly, for a day or two; then foot-bridges begin to be flungfrom one object to the next. This is the opportune moment.

I put the bunch laden with beasties on a small table, in the shade,before the open window. Soon, the exodus commences, but slowlyand unsteadily. There are hesitations, retrogressions, perpendicularfalls at the end of a thread, ascents that bring the hanging Spiderup again. In short much ado for a poor result.

As matters continue to drag, it occurs to me, at eleven o’clock,to take the bundle of brushwood swarming with the little Spiders, alleager to be off, and place it on the window-sill, in the glare of thesun. After a few minutes of heat and light, the scene assumesa very different aspect. The emigrants run to the top of the twigs,bustle about actively. It becomes a bewildering rope-yard, wherethousands of legs are drawing the hemp from the spinnerets. Ido not see the ropes manufactured and sent floating at the mercy ofthe air; but I guess their presence.

Three or four Spiders start at a time, each going her own way indirections independent of her neighbours’. All are movingupwards, all are climbing some support, as can be perceived by the nimblemotion of their legs. Moreover, the road is visible behind theclimber, it is of double thickness, thanks to an added thread.Then, at a certain height, individual movement ceases. The tinyanimal soars in space and shines, lit up by the sun. Softly itsways, then suddenly takes flight.

What has happened? There is a slight breeze outside.The floating cable has snapped and the creature has gone off, borneon its parachute. I see it drifting away, showing, like a spotof light, against the dark foliage of the near cypresses, some fortyfeet distant. It rises higher, it crosses over the cypress-screen,it disappears. Others follow, some higher, some lower, hitherand thither.

But the throng has finished its preparations; the hour has come todisperse in swarms. We now see, from the crest of the brushwood,a continuous spray of starters, who shoot up like microscopic projectilesand mount in a spreading cluster. In the end, it is like the bouquetat the finish of a pyrotechnic display, the sheaf of rockets fired simultaneously.The comparison is correct down to the dazzling light itself. Flamingin the sun like so many gleaming points, the little Spiders are thesparks of that living firework. What a glorious send-off! Whatan entrance into the world! Clutching its aeronautic thread, theminute creature mounts in an apotheosis.

Sooner or later, nearer or farther, the fall comes. To live,we have to descend, often very low, alas! The Crested Lark crumblesthe mule-droppings in the road and thus picks up his food, the oatengrain which he would never find by soaring in the sky, his throat swollenwith song. We have to descend; the stomach’s inexorableclaims demand it. The Spiderling, therefore, touches land.Gravity, tempered by the parachute, is kind to her.

The rest of her story escapes me. What infinitely tiny Midgesdoes she capture before possessing the strength to stab her Bee?What are the methods, what the wiles of atom contending with atom?I know not. We shall find her again in spring, grown quite largeand crouching among the flowers whence the Bee takes toll.

CHAPTER IX: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: BUILDING THE WEB

The fowling-snare is one of man’s ingenious villainies.With lines, pegs and poles, two large, earth-coloured nets are stretchedupon the ground, one to the right, the other to the left of a bare surface.A long cord, pulled, at the right moment, by the fowler, who hides ina brushwood hut, works them and brings them together suddenly, likea pair of shutters.

Divided between the two nets are the cages of the decoy-birds—Linnetsand Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Yellowhammers, Buntings and Ortolans—sharp-earedcreatures which, on perceiving the distant passage of a flock of theirown kind, forthwith utter a short calling note. One of them, theSambé, an irresistible tempter, hops about and flaps hiswings in apparent freedom. A bit of twine fastens him to his convict’sstake. When, worn with fatigue and driven desperate by his vainattempts to get away, the sufferer lies down flat and refuses to dohis duty, the fowler is able to stimulate him without stirring fromhis hut. A long string sets in motion a little lever working ona pivot. Raised from the ground by this diabolical contrivance,the bird flies, falls down and flies up again at each jerk of the cord.

The fowler waits, in the mild sunlight of the autumn morning.Suddenly, great excitement in the cages. The Chaffinches chirptheir rallying-cry:

‘Pinck! Pinck!’

There is something happening in the sky. The Sambé,quick! They are coming, the simpletons; they swoop down upon thetreacherous floor. With a rapid movement, the man in ambush pullshis string. The nets close and the whole flock is caught.

Man has wild beast’s blood in his veins. The fowler hastensto the slaughter. With his thumb, he stifles the beating of thecaptives’ hearts, staves in their skulls. The little birds,so many piteous heads of game, will go to market, strung in dozens ona wire passed through their nostrils.

For scoundrelly ingenuity the Epeira’s net can bear comparisonwith the fowler’s; it even surpasses it when, on patient study,the main features of its supreme perfection stand revealed. Whatrefinement of art for a mess of Flies! Nowhere, in the whole animalkingdom, has the need to eat inspired a more cunning industry.If the reader will meditate upon the description that follows, he willcertainly share my admiration.

First of all, we must witness the making of the net; we must seeit constructed and see it again and again, for the plan of such a complexwork can only be grasped in fragments. To-day, observation willgive us one detail; to-morrow, it will give us a second, suggestingfresh points of view; as our visits multiply, a new fact is each timeadded to the sum total of the acquired data, confirming those whichcome before or directing our thoughts along unsuspected paths.

The snow-ball rolling over the carpet of white grows enormous, howeverscanty each fresh layer be. Even so with truth in observationalscience: it is built up of trifles patiently gathered together.And, while the collecting of these trifles means that the student ofSpider industry must not be chary of his time, at least it involvesno distant and speculative research. The smallest garden containsEpeirae, all accomplished weavers.

In my enclosure, which I have stocked carefully with the most famousbreeds, I have six different species under observation, all of a usefulsize, all first-class spinners. Their names are the Banded Epeira(Epeira fasciata, WALCK.), the Silky Epeira (E. sericea,WALCK.), the Angular Epeira (E. angulata, WALCK.), the Pale-tintedEpeira (E. pallida, OLIV.), the Diadem Epeira, or Cross Spider(E. diadema, CLERK.), and the Crater Epeira (E. cratera,WALCK.).

I am able, at the proper hours, all through the fine season, to questionthem, to watch them at work, now this one, anon that, according to thechances of the day. What I did not see very plainly yesterdayI can see the next day, under better conditions, and on any of the followingdays, until the phenomenon under observation is revealed in all clearness.

Let us go every evening, step by step, from one border of tall rosemariesto the next. Should things move too slowly, we will sit down atthe foot of the shrubs, opposite the rope-yard, where the light fallsfavourably, and watch with unwearying attention. Each trip willbe good for a fact that fills some gap in the ideas already gathered.To appoint one’s self, in this way, an inspector of Spiders’webs, for many years in succession and for long seasons, means joininga not overcrowded profession, I admit. Heaven knows, it does notenable one to put money by! No matter: the meditative mind returnsfrom that school fully satisfied.

To describe the separate progress of the work in the case of eachof the six Epeirae mentioned would be a useless repetition: all sixemploy the same methods and weave similar webs, save for certain detailsthat shall be set forth later. I will, therefore, sum up in theaggregate the particulars supplied by one or other of them.

My subjects, in the first instance, are young and boast but a slightcorporation, very far removed from what it will be in the late autumn.The belly, the wallet containing the rope-works, hardly exceeds a peppercornin bulk. This slenderness on the part of the spinstresses mustnot prejudice us against their work: there is no parity between theirskill and their years. The adult Spiders, with their disgracefulpaunches, can do no better.

Moreover, the beginners have one very precious advantage for theobserver: they work by day, work even in the sun, whereas the old onesweave only at night, at unseasonable hours. The first show usthe secrets of their looms without much difficulty; the others concealthem from us. Work starts in July, a couple of hours before sunset.

The spinstresses of my enclosure then leave their daytime hiding-places,select their posts and begin to spin, one here, another there.There are many of them; we can choose where we please. Let usstop in front of this one, whom we surprise in the act of laying thefoundations of the structure. Without any appreciable order, sheruns about the rosemary-hedge, from the tip of one branch to anotherwithin the limits of some eighteen inches. Gradually, she putsa thread in position, drawing it from her wire-mill with the combs attachedto her hind-legs. This preparatory work presents no appearanceof a concerted plan. The Spider comes and goes impetuously, asthough at random; she goes up, comes down, goes up again, dives downagain and each time strengthens the points of contact with intricatemoorings distributed here and there. The result is a scanty anddisordered scaffolding.

Is disordered the word? Perhaps not. The Epeira’seye, more experienced in matters of this sort than mine, has recognizedthe general lie of the land; and the rope-fabric has been erected accordingly:it is very inaccurate in my opinion, but very suitable for the Spider’sdesigns. What is it that she really wants? A solid frameto contain the network of the web. The shapeless structure whichshe has just built fulfils the desired conditions: it marks out a flat,free and perpendicular area. This is all that is necessary.

The whole work, for that matter, is now soon completed; it is doneall over again, each evening, from top to bottom, for the incidentsof the chase destroy it in a night. The net is as yet too delicateto resist the desperate struggles of the captured prey. On theother hand, the adults’ net, which is formed of stouter threads,is adapted to last some time; and the Epeira gives it a more carefully-constructedframework, as we shall see elsewhere.

A special thread, the foundation of the real net, is stretched acrossthe area so capriciously circumscribed. It is distinguished fromthe others by its isolation, its position at a distance from any twigthat might interfere with its swaying length. It never fails tohave, in the middle, a thick white point, formed of a little silk cushion.This is the beacon that marks the centre of the future edifice, thepost that will guide the Epeira and bring order into the wildernessof twists and turns.

The time has come to weave the hunting-snare. The Spider startsfrom the centre, which bears the white signpost, and, running alongthe transversal thread, hurriedly reaches the circumference, that isto say, the irregular frame enclosing the free space. Still withthe same sudden movement, she rushes from the circumference to the centre;she starts again backwards and forwards, makes for the right, the left,the top, the bottom; she hoists herself up, dives down, climbs up again,runs down and always returns to the central landmark by roads that slantin the most unexpected manner. Each time, a radius or spoke islaid, here, there, or elsewhere, in what looks like mad disorder.

The operation is so erratically conducted that it takes the mostunremitting attention to follow it at all. The Spider reachesthe margin of the area by one of the spokes already placed. Shegoes along this margin for some distance from the point at which shelanded, fixes her thread to the frame and returns to the centre by thesame road which she has just taken.

The thread obtained on the way in a broken line, partly on the radiusand partly on the frame, is too long for the exact distance betweenthe circumference and the central point. On returning to thispoint, the Spider adjusts her thread, stretches it to the correct length,fixes it and collects what remains on the central signpost. Inthe case of each radius laid, the surplus is treated in the same fashion,so that the signpost continues to increase in size. It was firsta speck; it is now a little pellet, or even a small cushion of a certainbreadth.

We shall see presently what becomes of this cushion whereon the Spider,that niggardly housewife, lays her saved-up bits of thread; for themoment, we will note that the Epeira works it up with her legs afterplacing each spoke, teazles it with her claws, mats it into felt withnoteworthy diligence. In so doing, she gives the spokes a solidcommon support, something like the hub of our carriage-wheels.

The eventual regularity of the work suggests that the radii are spunin the same order in which they figure in the web, each following immediatelyupon its next neighbour. Matters pass in another manner, whichat first looks like disorder, but which is really a judicious contrivance.After setting a few spokes in one direction, the Epeira runs acrossto the other side to draw some in the opposite direction. Thesesudden changes of course are highly logical; they show us how proficientthe Spider is in the mechanics of rope-construction. Were theyto succeed one another regularly, the spokes of one group, having nothingas yet to counteract them, would distort the work by their straining,would even destroy it for lack of a stabler support. Before continuing,it is necessary to lay a converse group which will maintain the wholeby its resistance. Any combination of forces acting in one directionmust be forthwith neutralized by another in the opposite direction.This is what our statics teach us and what the Spider puts into practice;she is a past mistress of the secrets of rope-building, without servingan apprenticeship.

One would think that this interrupted and apparently disordered labourmust result in a confused piece of work. Wrong: the rays are equidistantand form a beautifully-regular orb. Their number is a characteristicmark of the different species. The Angular Epeira places 21 inher web, the Banded Epeira 32, the Silky Epeira 42. These numbersare not absolutely fixed; but the variation is very slight.

Now which of us would undertake, off-hand, without much preliminaryexperiment and without measuring-instruments, to divide a circle intoa given quantity of sectors of equal width? The Epeirae, thoughweighted with a wallet and tottering on threads shaken by the wind,effect the delicate division without stopping to think. They achieveit by a method which seems mad according to our notions of geometry.Out of disorder they evolve order.

We must not, however, give them more than their due. The anglesare only approximately equal; they satisfy the demands of the eye, butcannot stand the test of strict measurement. Mathematical precisionwould be superfluous here. No matter, we are amazed at the resultobtained. How does the Epeira come to succeed with her difficultproblem, so strangely managed? I am still asking myself the question.

The laying of the radii is finished. The Spider takes her placein the centre, on the little cushion formed of the inaugural signpostand the bits of thread left over. Stationed on this support, sheslowly turns round and round. She is engaged on a delicate pieceof work. With an extremely thin thread, she describes from spoketo spoke, starting from the centre, a spiral line with very close coils.The central space thus worked attains, in the adults’ webs, thedimensions of the palm of one’s hand; in the younger Spiders’webs, it is much smaller, but it is never absent. For reasonswhich I will explain in the course of this study, I shall call it, infuture, the ‘resting-floor.’

The thread now becomes thicker. The first could hardly be seen;the second is plainly visible. The Spider shifts her positionwith great slanting strides, turns a few times, moving farther and fartherfrom the centre, fixes her line each time to the spoke which she crossesand at last comes to a stop at the lower edge of the frame. Shehas described a spiral with coils of rapidly-increasing width.The average distance between the coils, even in the structures of theyoung Epeirae, is one centimetre. { 29}

Let us not be misled by the word ‘spiral,’ which conveysthe notion of a curved line. All curves are banished from theSpiders’ work; nothing is used but the straight line and its combinations.All that is aimed at is a polygonal line drawn in a curve as geometryunderstands it. To this polygonal line, a work destined to disappearas the real toils are woven, I will give the name of the ‘auxiliaryspiral.’ Its object is to supply cross-bars, supportingrungs, especially in the outer zone, where the radii are too distantfrom one another to afford a suitable groundwork. Its object isalso to guide the Epeira in the extremely delicate business which sheis now about to undertake.

But, before that, one last task becomes essential. The areaoccupied by the spokes is very irregular, being marked out by the supportsof the branch, which are infinitely variable. There are angularniches which, if skirted too closely, would disturb the symmetry ofthe web about to be constructed. The Epeira needs an exact spacewherein gradually to lay her spiral thread. Moreover, she mustnot leave any gaps through which her prey might find an outlet.

An expert in these matters, the Spider soon knows the corners thathave to be filled up. With an alternating movement, first in thisdirection, then in that, she lays, upon the support of the radii, athread that forms two acute angles at the lateral boundaries of thefaulty part and describes a zigzag line not wholly unlike the ornamentknown as the fret.

The sharp corners have now been filled with frets on every side;the time has come to work at the essential part, the snaring-web forwhich all the rest is but a support. Clinging on the one handto the radii, on the other to the chords of the auxiliary spiral, theEpeira covers the same ground as when laying the spiral, but in theopposite direction: formerly, she moved away from the centre; now shemoves towards it and with closer and more numerous circles. Shestarts from the base of the auxiliary spiral, near the frame.

What follows is difficult to observe, for the movements are veryquick and spasmodic, consisting of a series of sudden little rushes,sways and bends that bewilder the eye. It needs continuous attentionand repeated examination to distinguish the progress of the work howeverslightly.

The two hind-legs, the weaving implements, keep going constantly.Let us name them according to their position on the work-floor.I call the leg that faces the centre of the coil, when the animal moves,the ‘inner leg;’ the one outside the coil the ‘outerleg.’

The latter draws the thread from the spinneret and passes it to theinner leg, which, with a graceful movement, lays it on the radius crossed.At the same time, the first leg measures the distance; it grips thelast coil placed in position and brings within a suitable range thatpoint of the radius whereto the thread is to be fixed. As soonas the radius is touched, the thread sticks to it by its own glue.There are no slow operations, no knots: the fixing is done of itself.

Meanwhile, turning by narrow degrees, the spinstress approaches theauxiliary chords that have just served as her support. When, inthe end, these chords become too close, they will have to go; they wouldimpair the symmetry of the work. The Spider, therefore, clutchesand holds on to the rungs of a higher row; she picks up, one by one,as she goes along, those which are of no more use to her and gathersthem into a fine-spun ball at the contact-point of the next spoke.Hence arises a series of silky atoms marking the course of the disappearingspiral.

The light has to fall favourably for us to perceive these specks,the only remains of the ruined auxiliary thread. One would takethem for grains of dust, if the faultless regularity of their distributiondid not remind us of the vanished spiral. They continue, stillvisible, until the final collapse of the net.

And the Spider, without a stop of any kind, turns and turns and turns,drawing nearer to the centre and repeating the operation of fixing herthread at each spoke which she crosses. A good half-hour, an houreven among the full-grown Spiders, is spent on spiral circles, to thenumber of about fifty for the web of the Silky Epeira and thirty forthose of the Banded and the Angular Epeira.

At last, at some distance from the centre, on the borders of whatI have called the resting-floor, the Spider abruptly terminates herspiral when the space would still allow of a certain number of turns.We shall see the reason of this sudden stop presently. Next, theEpeira, no matter which, young or old, hurriedly flings herself uponthe little central cushion, pulls it out and rolls it into a ball whichI expected to see thrown away. But no: her thrifty nature doesnot permit this waste. She eats the cushion, at first an inaugurallandmark, then a heap of bits of thread; she once more melts in thedigestive crucible what is no doubt intended to be restored to the silkentreasury. It is a tough mouthful, difficult for the stomach toelaborate; still, it is precious and must not be lost. The workfinishes with the swallowing. Then and there, the Spider instalsherself, head downwards, at her hunting-post in the centre of the web.

The operation which we have just seen gives rise to a reflection.Men are born right-handed. Thanks to a lack of symmetry that hasnever been explained, our right side is stronger and readier in itsmovements than our left. The inequality is especially noticeablein the two hands. Our language expresses this supremacy of thefavoured side in the terms dexterity, adroitness and address, all ofwhich allude to the right hand.

Is the animal, on its side, right-handed, left-handed, or unbiased?We have had opportunities of showing that the Cricket, the Grasshopperand many others draw their bow, which is on the right wing-case, overthe sounding apparatus, which is on the left wing-case. They areright-handed.

When you and I take an unpremeditated turn, we spin round on ourright heel. The left side, the weaker, moves on the pivot of theright, the stronger. In the same way, nearly all the Molluscsthat have spiral shells roll their coils from left to right. Amongthe numerous species in both land and water fauna, only a very few areexceptional and turn from right to left.

It would be interesting to try and work out to what extent that partof the zoological kingdom which boasts a two-sided structure is dividedinto right-handed and left-handed animals. Can dissymetry, thatsource of contrasts, be a general rule? Or are there neutrals,endowed with equal powers of skill and energy on both sides? Yes,there are; and the Spider is one of them. She enjoys the veryenviable privilege of possessing a left side which is no less capablethan the right. She is ambidextrous, as witness the followingobservations.

When laying her snaring-thread, every Epeira turns in either directionindifferently, as a close watch will prove. Reasons whose secretescapes us determine the direction adopted. Once this or the othercourse is taken, the spinstress does not change it, even after incidentsthat sometimes occur to disturb the progress of the work. It mayhappen that a Gnat gets caught in the part already woven. TheSpider thereupon abruptly interrupts her labours, hastens up to theprey, binds it and then returns to where she stopped and continues thespiral in the same order as before.

At the commencement of the work, gyration in one direction beingemployed as well as gyration in the other, we see that, when makingher repeated webs, the same Epeira turns now her right side, now herleft to the centre of the coil. Well, as we have said, it is alwayswith the inner hind-leg, the leg nearer the centre, that is to say,in some cases the right and in some cases the left leg, that she placesthe thread in position, an exceedingly delicate operation calling forthe display of exquisite skill, because of the quickness of the actionand the need for preserving strictly equal distances. Any oneseeing this leg working with such extreme precision, the right leg to-day,the left to-morrow, becomes convinced that the Epeira is highly ambidextrous.

CHAPTER X: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: MY NEIGHBOUR

Age does not modify the Epeira’s talent in any essential feature.As the young worked, so do the old, the richer by a year’s experience.There are no masters nor apprentices in their guild; all know theircraft from the moment that the first thread is laid. We have learntsomething from the novices: let us now look into the matter of theirelders and see what additional task the needs of age impose upon them.

July comes and gives me exactly what I wish for. While thenew inhabitants are twisting their ropes on the rosemaries in the enclosure,one evening, by the last gleams of twilight, I discover a splendid Spider,with a mighty belly, just outside my door. This one is a matron;she dates back to last year; her majestic corpulence, so exceptionalat this season, proclaims the fact. I know her for the AngularEpeira (Epeira angulata, WALCK.), clad in grey and girdled withtwo dark stripes that meet in a point at the back. The base ofher abdomen swells into a short nipple on either side.

This neighbour will certainly serve my turn, provided that she donot work too late at night. Things bode well: I catch the buxomone in the act of laying her first threads. At this rate my successneed not be won at the expense of sleep. And, in fact, I am able,throughout the month of July and the greater part of August, from eightto ten o’clock in the evening, to watch the construction of theweb, which is more or less ruined nightly by the incidents of the chaseand built up again, next day, when too seriously dilapidated.

During the two stifling months, when the light fails and a spellof coolness follows upon the furnace-heat of the day, it is easy forme, lantern in hand, to watch my neighbour’s various operations.She has taken up her abode, at a convenient height for observation,between a row of cypress-trees and a clump of laurels, near the entranceto an alley haunted by Moths. The spot appears well-chosen, forthe Epeira does not change it throughout the season, though she renewsher net almost every night.

Punctually as darkness falls, our whole family goes and calls uponher. Big and little, we stand amazed at her wealth of belly andher exuberant somersaults in the maze of quivering ropes; we admirethe faultless geometry of the net as it gradually takes shape.All agleam in the lantern-light, the work becomes a fairy orb, whichseems woven of moonbeams.

Should I linger, in my anxiety to clear up certain details, the household,which by this time is in bed, waits for my return before going to sleep:

‘What has she been doing this evening?’ I am asked.‘Has she finished her web? Has she caught a Moth?’

I describe what has happened. To-morrow, they will be in aless hurry to go to bed: they will want to see everything, to the veryend. What delightful, simple evenings we have spent looking intothe Spider’s workshop!

The journal of the Angular Epeira, written up day by day, teachesus, first of all, how she obtains the ropes that form the frameworkof the building. All day invisible, crouching amid the cypress-leaves,the Spider, at about eight o’clock in the evening, solemnly emergesfrom her retreat and makes for the top of a branch. In this exaltedposition, she sits for some time laying her plans with due regard tothe locality; she consults the weather, ascertains if the night willbe fine. Then, suddenly, with her eight legs wide-spread, shelets herself drop straight down, hanging to the line that issues fromher spinnerets. Just as the rope-maker obtains the even outputof his hemp by walking backwards, so does the Epeira obtain the dischargeof hers by falling. It is extracted by the weight of her body.

The descent, however, has not the brute speed which the force ofgravity would give it, if uncontrolled. It is governed by theaction of the spinnerets, which contract or expand their pores, or closethem entirely, at the faller’s pleasure. And so, with gentlemoderation she pays out this living plumb-line, of which my lanternclearly shows me the plumb, but not always the line. The greatsquab seems at such times to be sprawling in space, without the leastsupport.

She comes to an abrupt stop two inches from the ground; the silk-reelceases working. The Spider turns round, clutches the line whichshe has just obtained and climbs up by this road, still spinning.But, this time, as she is no longer assisted by the force of gravity,the thread is extracted in another manner. The two hind-legs,with a quick alternate action, draw it from the wallet and let it go.

On returning to her starting-point, at a height of six feet or more,the Spider is now in possession of a double line, bent into a loop andfloating loosely in a current of air. She fixes her end whereit suits her and waits until the other end, wafted by the wind, hasfastened its loop to the adjacent twigs.

The desired result may be very slow in coming. It does nottire the unfailing patience of the Epeira, but it soon wears out mine.And it has happened to me sometimes to collaborate with the Spider.I pick up the floating loop with a straw and lay it on a branch, ata convenient height. The foot-bridge erected with my assistanceis considered satisfactory, just as though the wind had placed it.I count this collaboration among the good actions standing to my credit.

Feeling her thread fixed, the Epeira runs along it repeatedly, fromend to end, adding a fibre to it on each journey. Whether I helpor not, this forms the ‘suspension-cable,’ the main pieceof the framework. I call it a cable, in spite of its extreme thinness,because of its structure. It looks as though it were single, but,at the two ends, it is seen to divide and spread, tuft-wise, into numerousconstituent parts, which are the product of as many crossings.These diverging fibres, with their several contact-points, increasethe steadiness of the two extremities.

The suspension-cable is incomparably stronger than the rest of thework and lasts for an indefinite time. The web is generally shatteredafter the night’s hunting and is nearly always rewoven on thefollowing evening. After the removal of the wreckage, it is madeall over again, on the same site, cleared of everything except the cablefrom which the new network is to hang.

The laying of this cable is a somewhat difficult matter, becausethe success of the enterprise does not depend upon the animal’sindustry alone. It has to wait until a breeze carries the lineto the pier-head in the bushes. Sometimes, a calm prevails; sometimes,the thread catches at an unsuitable point. This involves greatexpenditure of time, with no certainty of success. And so, whenonce the suspension-cable is in being, well and solidly placed, theEpeira does not change it, except on critical occasions. Everyevening, she passes and repasses over it, strengthening it with freshthreads.

When the Epeira cannot manage a fall of sufficient depth to giveher the double line with its loop to be fixed at a distance, she employsanother method. She lets herself down and then climbs up again,as we have already seen; but, this time, the thread ends suddenly ina filmy hair-pencil, a tuft, whose parts remain disjoined, just as theycome from the spinneret’s rose. Then this sort of bushyfox’s brush is cut short, as though with a pair of scissors, andthe whole thread, when unfurled, doubles its length, which is now enoughfor the purpose. It is fastened by the end joined to the Spider;the other floats in the air, with its spreading tuft, which easily tanglesin the bushes. Even so must the Banded Epeira go to work whenshe throws her daring suspension-bridge across a stream.

Once the cable is laid, in this way or in that, the Spider is inpossession of a base that allows her to approach or withdraw from theleafy piers at will. From the height of the cable, the upper boundaryof the projected works, she lets herself slip to a slight depth, varyingthe points of her fall. She climbs up again by the line producedby her descent. The result of the operation is a double threadwhich is unwound while the Spider walks along her big foot-bridge tothe contact-branch, where she fixes the free end of her thread moreor less low down. In this way, she obtains, to right and left,a few slanting cross-bars, connecting the cable with the branches.

These cross-bars, in their turn, support others in ever-changingdirections. When there are enough of them, the Epeira need nolonger resort to falls in order to extract her threads; she goes fromone cord to the next, always wire-drawing with her hind-legs and placingher produce in position as she goes. This results in a combinationof straight lines owning no order, save that they are kept in one, nearlyperpendicular plane. They mark a very irregular polygonal area,wherein the web, itself a work of magnificent regularity, shall presentlybe woven.

It is unnecessary to go over the construction of the masterpieceagain; the younger Spiders have taught us enough in this respect.In both cases, we see the same equidistant radii laid, with a centrallandmark for a guide; the same auxiliary spiral, the scaffolding oftemporary rungs, soon doomed to disappear; the same snaring-spiral,with its maze of closely-woven coils. Let us pass on: other detailscall for our attention.

The laying of the snaring-spiral is an exceedingly delicate operation,because of the regularity of the work. I was bent upon knowingwhether, if subjected to the din of unaccustomed sounds, the Spiderwould hesitate and blunder. Does she work imperturbably?Or does she need undisturbed quiet? As it is, I know that my presenceand that of my light hardly trouble her at all. The sudden flashesemitted by my lantern have no power to distract her from her task.She continues to turn in the light even as she turned in the dark, neitherfaster nor slower. This is a good omen for the experiment whichI have in view.

The first Sunday in August is the feast of the patron saint of thevillage, commemorating the Finding of St. Stephen. This is Tuesday,the third day of the rejoicings. There will be fireworks to-night,at nine o’clock, to conclude the merry-makings. They willtake place on the high-road outside my door, at a few steps from thespot where my Spider is working. The spinstress is busy upon hergreat spiral at the very moment when the village big-wigs arrive withtrumpet and drum and small boys carrying torches.

More interested in animal psychology than in pyrotechnical displays,I watch the Epeira’s doings, lantern in hand. The hullabalooof the crowd, the reports of the mortars, the crackle of Roman candlesbursting in the sky, the hiss of the rockets, the rain of sparks, thesudden flashes of white, red or blue light: none of this disturbs theworker, who methodically turns and turns again, just as she does inthe peace of ordinary evenings.

Once before, the gun which I fired under the plane-trees failed totrouble the concert of the Cicadae; to-day, the dazzling light of thefire-wheels and the splutter of the crackers do not avail to distractthe Spider from her weaving. And, after all, what difference wouldit make to my neighbour if the world fell in! The village couldbe blown up with dynamite, without her losing her head for such a trifle.She would calmly go on with her web.

Let us return to the Spider manufacturing her net under the usualtranquil conditions. The great spiral has been finished, abruptly,on the confines of the resting-floor. The central cushion, a matof ends of saved thread, is next pulled up and eaten. But, beforeindulging in this mouthful, which closes the proceedings, two Spiders,the only two of the order, the Banded and the Silky Epeira, have stillto sign their work. A broad, white ribbon is laid, in a thickzigzag, from the centre to the lower edge of the orb. Sometimes,but not always, a second band of the same shape and of lesser lengthoccupies the upper portion, opposite the first.

I like to look upon these odd flourishes as consolidating-gear.To begin with, the young Epeirae never use them. For the moment,heedless of the future and lavish of their silk, they remake their webnightly, even though it be none too much dilapidated and might wellserve again. A brand-new snare at sunset is the rule with them.And there is little need for increased solidity when the work has tobe done again on the morrow.

On the other hand, in the late autumn, the full-grown Spiders, feelinglaying-time at hand, are driven to practise economy, in view of thegreat expenditure of silk required for the egg-bag. Owing to itslarge size, the net now becomes a costly work which it were well touse as long as possible, for fear of finding one’s reserves exhaustedwhen the time comes for the expensive construction of the nest.For this reason, or for others which escape me, the Banded and the SilkyEpeirae think it wise to produce durable work and to strengthen theirtoils with a cross-ribbon. The other Epeirae, who are put to lessexpense in the fabrication of their maternal wallet—a mere pill—areunacquainted with the zigzag binder and, like the younger Spiders, reconstructtheir web almost nightly.

My fat neighbour, the Angular Epeira, consulted by the light of alantern, shall tell us how the renewal of the net proceeds. Asthe twilight fades, she comes down cautiously from her day-dwelling;she leaves the foliage of the cypresses for the suspension-cable ofher snare. Here she stands for some time; then, descending toher web, she collects the wreckage in great armfuls. Everything—spiral,spokes and frame—is raked up with her legs. One thing aloneis spared and that is the suspension-cable, the sturdy piece of workthat has served as a foundation for the previous buildings and willserve for the new after receiving a few strengthening repairs.

The collected ruins form a pill which the Spider consumes with thesame greed that she would show in swallowing her prey. Nothingremains. This is the second instance of the Spiders’ supremeeconomy of their silk. We have seen them, after the manufactureof the net, eating the central guide-post, a modest mouthful; we nowsee them gobbling up the whole web, a meal. Refined and turnedinto fluid by the stomach, the materials of the old net will serve forother purposes.

As goon as the site is thoroughly cleared, the work of the frameand the net begins on the support of the suspension-cable which wasrespected. Would it not be simpler to restore the old web, whichmight serve many times yet, if a few rents were just repaired?One would say so; but does the Spider know how to patch her work, asa thrifty housewife darns her linen? That is the question.

To mend severed meshes, to replace broken threads, to adjust thenew to the old, in short, to restore the original order by assemblingthe wreckage would be a far-reaching feat of prowess, a very fine proofof gleams of intelligence, capable of performing rational calculations.Our menders excel in this class of work. They have as their guidetheir sense, which measures the holes, cuts the new piece to size andfits it into its proper place. Does the Spider possess the counterpartof this habit of clear thinking?

People declare as much, without, apparently, looking into the mattervery closely. They seem able to dispense with the conscientiousobserver’s scruples, when inflating their bladder of theory.They go straight ahead; and that is enough. As for ourselves,less greatly daring, we will first enquire; we will see by experimentif the Spider really knows how to repair her work.

The Angular Epeira, that near neighbour who has already suppliedme with so many documents, has just finished her web, at nine o’clockin the evening. It is a splendid night, calm and warm, favourableto the rounds of the Moths. All promises good hunting. Atthe moment when, after completing the great spiral, the Epeira is aboutto eat the central cushion and settle down upon her resting-floor, Icut the web in two, diagonally, with a pair of sharp scissors.The sagging of the spokes, deprived of their counter-agents, producesan empty space, wide enough for three fingers to pass through.

The Spider retreats to her cable and looks on without being greatlyfrightened. When I have done, she quietly returns. She takesher stand on one of the halves, at the spot which was the centre ofthe original orb; but, as her legs find no footing on one side, shesoon realizes that the snare is defective. Thereupon, two threadsare stretched across the breach, two threads, no more; the legs thatlacked a foothold spread across them; and henceforth the Epeira movesno more, devoting her attention to the incidents of the chase.

When I saw those two threads laid, joining the edges of the rent,I began to hope that I was to witness a mending-process:

‘The Spider,’ said I to myself, ‘will increasethe number of those cross-threads from end to end of the breach; and,though the added piece may not match the rest of the work, at leastit will fill the gap and the continuous sheet will be of the same usepractically as the regular web.’

The reality did not answer to my expectation. The spinstressmade no further endeavour all night. She hunted with her rivennet, for what it was worth; for I found the web next morning in thesame condition wherein I had left it on the night before. Therehad been no mending of any kind.

The two threads stretched across the breach even must not be takenfor an attempt at repairing. Finding no foothold for her legson one side, the Spider went to look into the state of things and, inso doing, crossed the rent. In going and returning, she left athread, as is the custom with all the Epeirae when walking. Itwas not a deliberate mending, but the mere result of an uneasy changeof place.

Perhaps the subject of my experiment thought it unnecessary to goto fresh trouble and expense, for the web can serve quite well as itis, after my scissor-cut: the two halves together represent the originalsnaring-surface. All that the Spider, seated in a central position,need do is to find the requisite support for her spread legs.The two threads stretched from side to side of the cleft supply herwith this, or nearly. My mischief did not go far enough.Let us devise something better.

Next day, the web is renewed, after the old one has been swallowed.When the work is done and the Epeira seated motionless at her centralpost, I take a straw and, wielding it dexterously, so as to respectthe resting-floor and the spokes, I pull and root up the spiral, whichdangles in tatters. With its snaring-threads ruined, the net isuseless; no passing Moth would allow herself to be caught. Nowwhat does the Epeira do in the face of this disaster? Nothingat all. Motionless on her resting-floor, which I have left intact,she awaits the capture of the game; she awaits it all night in vainon her impotent web. In the morning, I find the snare as I leftit. Necessity, the mother of invention, has not prompted the Spiderto make a slight repair in her ruined toils.

Possibly this is asking too much of her resources. The silk-glandsmay be exhausted after the laying of the great spiral; and to repeatthe same expenditure immediately is out of the question. I wanta case wherein there could be no appeal to any such exhaustion.I obtain it, thanks to my assiduity.

While I am watching the rolling of the spiral, a head of game rushesfun tilt into the unfinished snare. The Epeira interrupts herwork, hurries to the giddy-pate, swathes him and takes her fill of himwhere he lies. During the struggle, a section of the web has tornunder the weaver’s very eyes. A great gap endangers thesatisfactory working of the net. What will the spider do in thepresence of this grievous rent?

Now or never is the time to repair the broken threads: the accidenthas happened this very moment, between the animal’s legs; it iscertainly known and, moreover, the rope-works are in full swing.This time there is no question of the exhaustion of the silk-warehouse.

Well, under these conditions, so favourable to darning, the Epeiradoes no mending at all. She flings aside her prey, after takinga few sips at it, and resumes her spiral at the point where she interruptedit to attack the Moth. The torn part remains as it is. Themachine-shuttle in our looms does not revert to the spoiled fabric;even so with the Spider working at her web.

And this is no case of distraction, of individual carelessness; allthe large spinstresses suffer from a similar incapacity for patching.The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira are noteworthy in this respect.The Angular Epeira remakes her web nearly every evening; the other tworeconstruct theirs only very seldom and use them even when extremelydilapidated. They go on hunting with shapeless rags. Beforethey bring themselves to weave a new web, the old one has to be ruinedbeyond recognition. Well, I have often noted the state of oneof these ruins and, the next morning, I have found it as it was, oreven more dilapidated. Never any repairs; never; never.I am sorry, because of the reputation which our hard-pressed theoristshave given her, but the Spider is absolutely unable to mend her work.In spite of her thoughtful appearance, the Epeira is incapable of themodicum of reflexion required to insert a piece into an accidental gap.

Other Spiders are unacquainted with wide-meshed nets and weave satinswherein the threads, crossing at random, form a continuous substance.Among this number is the House Spider (Tegenaria domestica, LIN.).In the corners of our rooms, she stretches wide webs fixed by angularextensions. The best-protected nook at one side contains the owner’ssecret apartment. It is a silk tube, a gallery with a conicalopening, whence the Spider, sheltered from the eye, watches events.The rest of the fabric, which exceeds our finest muslins in delicacy,is not, properly speaking, a hunting-implement: it is a platform whereonthe Spider, attending to the affairs of her estate, goes her rounds,especially at night. The real trap consists of a confusion oflines stretched above the web.

The snare, constructed according to other rules than in the caseof the Epeirae, also works differently. Here are no viscous threads,but plain toils, rendered invisible by the very number. If a Gnatrush into the perfidious entanglement, he is caught at once; and themore he struggles the more firmly is he bound. The snareling fallson the sheet-web. Tegenariahastens up and bites him inthe neck.

Having said this, let us experiment a little. In the web ofthe House Spider, I make a round hole, two fingers wide. The holeremains yawning all day long; but next morning it is invariably closed.An extremely thin gauze covers the breach, the dark appearance of whichcontrasts with the dense whiteness of the surrounding fabric.The gauze is so delicate that, to make sure of its presence, I use astraw rather than my eyes. The movement of the web, when thispart is touched, proves the presence of an obstacle.

Here, the matter would appear obvious. The House Spider hasmended her work during the night; she has put a patch in the torn stuff,a talent unknown to the Garden Spiders. It would be greatly toher credit, if a mere attentive study did not lead to another conclusion.

The web of the House Spider is, as we were saying, a platform forwatching and exploring; it is also a sheet into which the insects caughtin the overhead rigging fall. This surface, a domain subject tounlimited shocks, is never strong enough, especially as it is exposedto the additional burden of little bits of plaster loosened from thewall. The owner is constantly working at it; she adds a new layernightly.

Every time that she issues from her tubular retreat or returns toit, she fixes the thread that hangs behind her upon the road covered.As evidence of this work, we have the direction of the surface-lines,all of which, whether straight or winding, according to the fanciesthat guide the Spider’s path, converge upon the entrance of thetube. Each step taken, beyond a doubt, adds a filament to theweb.

We have here the story of the Processionary of the Pine, { 30}whose habits I have related elsewhere. When the caterpillars leavethe silk pouch, to go and browse at night, and also when they enterit again, they never fail to spin a little on the surface of their nest.Each expedition adds to the thickness of the wall.

When moving this way or that upon the purse which I have split fromtop to bottom with my scissors, the Processionaries upholster the breacheven as they upholster the untouched part, without paying more attentionto it than to the rest of the wall. Caring nothing about the accident,they behave in the same way as on a non-gutted dwelling. The creviceis closed, in course of time, not intentionally, but solely by the actionof the usual spinning.

We arrive at the same conclusion on the subject of the House Spider.Walking about her platform every night, she lays fresh courses withoutdrawing a distinction between the solid and the hollow. She hasnot deliberately put a patch in the torn texture; she has simply goneon with her ordinary business. If it happen that the hole is eventuallyclosed, this fortunate result is the outcome not of a special purpose,but of an unvarying method of work.

Besides, it is evident that, if the Spider really wished to mendher web, all her endeavours would be concentrated upon the rent.She would devote to it all the silk at her disposal and obtain in onesitting a piece very like the rest of the web. Instead of that,what do we find? Almost nothing: a hardly visible gauze.

The thing is obvious: the Spider did on that rent what she did everyelsewhere, neither more nor less. Far from squandering silk uponit, she saved her silk so as to have enough for the whole web.The gap will be better mended, little by little, afterwards, as thesheet is strengthened all over with new layers. And this willtake long. Two months later, the window—my work—stillshows through and makes a dark stain against the dead-white of the fabric.

Neither weavers nor spinners, therefore, know how to repair theirwork. Those wonderful manufacturers of silk-stuffs lack the leastglimmer of that sacred lamp, reason, which enables the stupidest ofdarning-women to mend the heel of an old stocking. The officeof inspector of Spiders’ webs would have its uses, even if itmerely succeeded in ridding us of a mistaken and mischievous idea.

CHAPTER XI: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE LIME-SNARE

The spiral network of the Epeirae possesses contrivances of fearsomecunning. Let us give our attention by preference to that of theBanded Epeira or that of the Silky Epeira, both of which can be observedat early morning in all their freshness.

The thread that forms them is seen with the naked eye to differ fromthat of the framework and the spokes. It glitters in the sun,looks as though it were knotted and gives the impression of a chapletof atoms. To examine it through the lens on the web itself isscarcely feasible, because of the shaking of the fabric, which tremblesat the least breath. By passing a sheet of glass under the weband lifting it, I take away a few pieces of thread to study, piecesthat remain fixed to the glass in parallel lines. Lens and microscopecan now play their part.

The sight is perfectly astounding. Those threads, on the borderlandbetween the visible and the invisible, are very closely twisted twine,similar to the gold cord of our officers’ sword-knots. Moreover,they are hollow. The infinitely slender is a tube, a channel fullof a viscous moisture resembling a strong solution of gum arabic.I can see a diaphanous trail of this moisture trickling through thebroken ends. Under the pressure of the thin glass slide that coversthem on the stage of the microscope, the twists lengthen out, becomecrinkled ribbons, traversed from end to end, through the middle, bya dark streak, which is the empty container.

The fluid contents must ooze slowly through the side of those tubularthreads, rolled into twisted strings, and thus render the network sticky.It is sticky, in fact, and in such a way as to provoke surprise.I bring a fine straw flat down upon three or four rungs of a sector.However gentle the contact, adhesion is at once established. WhenI lift the straw, the threads come with it and stretch to twice or threetimes their length, like a thread of India-rubber. At last, whenover-taut, they loosen without breaking and resume their original form.They lengthen by unrolling their twist, they shorten by rolling it again;lastly, they become adhesive by taking the glaze of the gummy moisturewherewith they are filled.

In short, the spiral thread is a capillary tube finer than any thatour physics will ever know. It is rolled into a twist so as topossess an elasticity that allows it, without breaking, to yield tothe tugs of the captured prey; it holds a supply of sticky matter inreserve in its tube, so as to renew the adhesive properties of the surfaceby incessant exudation, as they become impaired by exposure to the air.It is simply marvellous.

The Epeira hunts not with springs, but with lime-snares. Andsuch lime-snares! Everything is caught in them, down to the dandelion-plumethat barely brushes against them. Nevertheless, the Epeira, whois in constant touch with her web, is not caught in them. Why?

Let us first of all remember that the Spider has contrived for herself,in the middle of her trap, a floor in whose construction the stickyspiral thread plays no part. We saw how this thread stops suddenlyat some distance from the centre. There is here, covering a spacewhich, in the larger webs, is about equal to the palm of one’shand, a fabric formed of spokes and of the commencement of the auxiliaryspiral, a neutral fabric in which the exploring straw finds no adhesivenessanywhere.

Here, on this central resting-floor, and here only, the Epeira takesher stand, waiting whole days for the arrival of the game. Howeverclose, however prolonged her contact with this portion of the web, sheruns no risk of sticking to it, because the gummy coating is lacking,as is the twisted and tubular structure, throughout the length of thespokes and throughout the extent of the auxiliary spiral. Thesepieces, together with the rest of the framework, are made of plain,straight, solid thread.

But, when a victim is caught, sometimes right at the edge of theweb, the Spider has to rush up quickly, to bind it and overcome itsattempts to free itself. She is walking then upon her network;and I do not find that she suffers the least inconvenience. Thelime-threads are not even lifted by the movements of her legs.

In my boyhood, when a troop of us would go, on Thursdays, { 31}to try and catch a Goldfinch in the hemp-fields, we used, before coveringthe twigs with glue, to grease our fingers with a few drops of oil,lest we should get them caught in the sticky matter. Does theEpeira know the secret of fatty substances? Let us try.

I rub my exploring straw with slightly oiled paper. When appliedto the spiral thread of the web, it now no longer sticks to it.The principle is discovered. I pull out the leg of a live Epeira.Brought just as it is into contact with the lime-threads, it does notstick to them any more than to the neutral cords, whether spokes orparts of the framework. We were entitled to expect this, judgingby the Spider’s general immunity.

But here is something that wholly alters the result. I putthe leg to soak for a quarter of an hour in disulphide of carbon, thebest solvent of fatty matters. I wash it carefully with a brushdipped in the same fluid. When this washing is finished, the legsticks to the snaring-thread quite easily and adheres to it just aswell as anything else would, the unoiled straw, for instance.

Did I guess aright when I judged that it was a fatty substance thatpreserved the Epeira from the snares of her sticky Catherine-wheel?The action of the carbon disulphide seems to say yes. Besides,there is no reason why a substance of this kind, which plays so frequenta part in animal economy, should not coat the Spider very slightly bythe mere act of perspiration. We used to rub our fingers witha little oil before handling the twigs in which the Goldfinch was tobe caught; even so the Epeira varnishes herself with a special sweat,to operate on any part of her web without fear of the lime-threads.

However, an unduly protracted stay on the sticky threads would haveits drawbacks. In the long run, continual contact with those threadsmight produce a certain adhesion and inconvenience the Spider, who mustpreserve all her agility in order to rush upon the prey before it canrelease itself. For this reason, gummy threads are never usedin building the post of interminable waiting.

It is only on her resting-floor that the Epeira sits, motionlessand with her eight legs outspread, ready to mark the least quiver inthe net. It is here, again, that she takes her meals, often long-drawn-out,when the joint is a substantial one; it is hither that, after trussingand nibbling it, she drags her prey at the end of a thread, to consumeit at her ease on a non-viscous mat. As a hunting-post and refectory,the Epeira has contrived a central space, free from glue.

As for the glue itself, it is hardly possible to study its chemicalproperties, because the quantity is so slight. The microscopeshows it trickling from the broken threads in the form of a transparentand more or less granular streak. The following experiment willtell us more about it.

With a sheet of glass passed across the web, I gather a series oflime-threads which remain fixed in parallel lines. I cover thissheet with a bell-jar standing in a depth of water. Soon, in thisatmosphere saturated with humidity, the threads become enveloped ina watery sheath, which gradually increases and begins to flow.The twisted shape has by this time disappeared; and the channel of thethread reveals a chaplet of translucent orbs, that is to say, a seriesof extremely fine drops.

In twenty-four hours, the threads have lost their contents and arereduced to almost invisible streaks. If I then lay a drop of wateron the glass, I get a sticky solution, similar to that which a particleof gum arabic might yield. The conclusion is evident: the Epeira’sglue is a substance that absorbs moisture freely. In an atmospherewith a high degree of humidity, it becomes saturated and percolatesby sweating through the side of the tubular threads.

These data explain certain facts relating to the work of the net.The full-grown Banded and Silky Epeirae weave at very early hours, longbefore dawn. Should the air turn misty, they sometimes leave thatpart of the task unfinished: they build the general framework, theylay the spokes, they even draw the auxiliary spiral, for all these partsare unaffected by excess of moisture; but they are very careful notto work at the lime-threads, which, if soaked by the fog, would dissolveinto sticky shreds and lose their efficacy by being wetted. Thenet that was started will be finished to-morrow, if the atmosphere befavourable.

While the highly-absorbent character of the snaring-thread has itsdrawbacks, it also has compensating advantages. Both Epeirae,when hunting by day, affect those hot places, exposed to the fiercerays of the sun, wherein the Crickets delight. In the torrid heatsof the dog-days, therefore, the lime-threads, but for special provisions,would be liable to dry up, to shrivel into stiff and lifeless filaments.But the very opposite happens. At the most scorching times ofthe day, they continue supple, elastic and more and more adhesive.

How is this brought about? By their very powers of absorption.The moisture of which the air is never deprived penetrates them slowly;it dilutes the thick contents of their tubes to the requisite degreeand causes it to ooze through, as and when the earlier stickiness decreases.What bird-catcher could vie with the Garden Spider in the art of layinglime-snares? And all this industry and cunning for the captureof a Moth!

Then, too, what a passion for production! Knowing the diameterof the orb and the number of coils, we can easily calculate the totallength of the sticky spiral. We find that, in one sitting, eachtime that she remakes her web, the Angular Epeira produces some twentyyards of gummy thread. The more skilful Silky Epeira producesthirty. Well, during two months, the Angular Epeira, my neighbour,renewed her snare nearly every evening. During that period, shemanufactured something like three-quarters of a mile of this tubularthread, rolled into a tight twist and bulging with glue.

I should like an anatomist endowed with better implements than mineand with less tired eyesight to explain to us the work of the marvellousrope-yard. How is the silky matter moulded into a capillary tube?How is this tube filled with glue and tightly twisted? And howdoes this same wire-mill also turn out plain threads, wrought firstinto a framework and then into muslin and satin; next, a russet foam,such as fills the wallet of the Banded Epeira; next, the black stripesstretched in meridian curves on that same wallet? What a numberof products to come from that curious factory, a Spider’s belly!I behold the results, but fail to understand the working of the machine.I leave the problem to the masters of the microtome and the scalpel.

CHAPTER XII: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE TELEGRAPH-WIRE

Of the six Garden Spiders that form the object of my observations,two only, the Banded and the silky Epeira, remain constantly in theirwebs, even under the blinding rays of a fierce sun. The others,as a rule, do not show themselves until nightfall. At some distancefrom the net, they have a rough and ready retreat in the brambles, anambush made of a few leaves held together by stretched threads.It is here that, for the most part, they remain in the daytime, motionlessand sunk in meditation.

But the shrill light that vexes them is the joy of the fields.At such times, the Locust hops more nimbly than ever, more gaily skimsthe Dragon-fly. Besides, the limy web, despite the rents sufferedduring the night, is still in serviceable condition. If some giddy-pateallow himself to be caught, will the Spider, at the distance wheretoshe has retired, be unable to take advantage of the windfall?Never fear. She arrives in a flash. How is she apprised?Let us explain the matter.

The alarm is given by the vibration of the web, much more than bythe sight of the captured object. A very simple experiment willprove this. I lay upon a Banded Epeira’s lime-threads aLocust that second asphyxiated with carbon disulphide. The carcassis placed in front, or behind, or at either side of the Spider, whosits moveless in the centre of the net. If the test is to be appliedto a species with a daytime hiding-place amid the foliage, the deadLocust is laid on the web, more or less near the centre, no matter how.

In both cases, nothing happens at first. The Epeira remainsin her motionless attitude, even when the morsel is at a short distancein front of her. She is indifferent to the presence of the game,does not seem to perceive it, so much so that she ends by wearing outmy patience. Then, with a long straw, which enables me to concealmyself slightly, I set the dead insect trembling.

That is quite enough. The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeirahasten to the central floor; the others come down from the branch; allgo to the Locust, swathe him with tape, treat him, in short, as theywould treat a live prey captured under normal conditions. It tookthe shaking of the web to decide them to attack.

Perhaps the grey colour of the Locust is not sufficiently conspicuousto attract attention by itself. Then let us try red, the brightestcolour to our retina and probably also to the Spiders’.None of the game hunted by the Epeirae being clad in scarlet, I makea small bundle out of red wool, a bait of the size of a Locust.I glue it to the web.

My stratagem succeeds. As long as the parcel is stationary,the Spider is not roused; but, the moment it trembles, stirred by mystraw, she runs up eagerly.

There are silly ones who just touch the thing with their legs and,without further enquiries, swathe it in silk after the manner of theusual game. They even go so far as to dig their fangs into thebait, following the rule of the preliminary poisoning. Then andthen only the mistake is recognized and the tricked Spider retires anddoes not come back, unless it be long afterwards, when she flings thecumbersome object out of the web.

There are also clever ones. Like the others, these hasten tothe red-woollen lure, which my straw insidiously keeps moving; theycome from their tent among the leaves as readily as from the centreof the web; they explore it with their palpi and their legs; but, soonperceiving that the thing is valueless, they are careful not to spendtheir silk on useless bonds. My quivering bait does not deceivethem. It is flung out after a brief inspection.

Still, the clever ones, like the silly ones, run even from a distance,from their leafy ambush. How do they know? Certainly notby sight. Before recognizing their mistake, they have to holdthe object between their legs and even to nibble at it a little.They are extremely short-sighted. At a hand’s-breadth’sdistance, the lifeless prey, unable to shake the web, remains unperceived.Besides, in many cases, the hunting takes place in the dense darknessof the night, when sight, even if it were good, would not avail.

If the eyes are insufficient guides, even close at hand, how willit be when the prey has to be spied from afar! In that case, an intelligence-apparatusfor long-distance work becomes indispensable. We have no difficultyin detecting the apparatus.

Let us look attentively behind the web of any Epeira with a daytimehiding-place: we shall see a thread that starts from the centre of thenetwork, ascends in a slanting line outside the plane of the web andends at the ambush where the Spider lurks all day. Except at thecentral point, there is no connection between this thread and the restof the work, no interweaving with the scaffolding-threads. Freeof impediment, the line runs straight from the centre of the net tothe ambush-tent. Its length averages twenty-two inches.The Angular Epeira, settled high up in the trees, has shown me someas long as eight or nine feet.

There is no doubt that this slanting line is a foot-bridge whichallows the Spider to repair hurriedly to the web, when summoned by urgentbusiness, and then, when her round is finished, to return to her hut.In fact, it is the road which I see her follow, in going and coming.But is that all? No; for, if the Epeira had no aim in view buta means of rapid transit between her tent and the net, the foot-bridgewould be fastened to the upper edge of the web. The journey wouldbe shorter and the slope less steep.

Why, moreover, does this line always start in the centre of the stickynetwork and nowhere else? Because that is the point where thespokes meet and, therefore, the common centre of vibration. Anythingthat moves upon the web sets it shaking. All then that is neededis a thread issuing from this central point to convey to a distancethe news of a prey struggling in some part or other of the net.The slanting cord, extending outside the plane of the web, is more thana foot-bridge: it is, above all, a signalling-apparatus, a telegraph-wire.

Let us try experiment. I place a Locust on the network.Caught in the sticky toils, he plunges about. Forthwith, the Spiderissues impetuously from her hut, comes down the foot-bridge, makes arush for the Locust, wraps him up and operates on him according to rule.Soon after, she hoists him, fastened by a line to her spinneret, anddrags him to her hiding-place, where a long banquet will be held.So far, nothing new: things happen as usual.

I leave the Spider to mind her own affairs for some days, beforeI interfere with her. I again propose to give her a Locust; but,this time, I first cut the signalling-thread with a touch of the scissors,without shaking any part of the edifice. The game is then laidon the web. Complete success: the entangled insect struggles,sets the net quivering; the Spider, on her side, does not stir, as thoughheedless of events.

The idea might occur to one that, in this business, the Epeira staysmotionless in her cabin since she is prevented from hurrying down, becausethe foot-bridge is broken. Let us undeceive ourselves: for oneroad open to her there are a hundred, all ready to bring her to theplace where her presence is now required. The network is fastenedto the branches by a host of lines, all of them very easy to cross.Well, the Epeira embarks upon none of them, but remains moveless andself-absorbed.

Why? Because her telegraph, being out of order, no longer tellsher of the shaking of the web. The captured prey is too far offfor her to see it; she is all unwitting. A good hour passes, withthe Locust still kicking, the Spider impassive, myself watching.Nevertheless, in the end, the Epeira wakes up: no longer feeling thesignalling-thread, broken by my scissors, as taut as usual under herlegs, she comes to look into the state of things. The web is reached,without the least difficulty, by one of the lines of the framework,the first that offers. The Locust is then perceived and forthwithenswathed, after which the signalling-thread is remade, taking the placeof the one which I have broken. Along this road the Spider goeshome, dragging her prey behind her.

My neighbour, the mighty Angular Epeira, with her telegraph-wirenine feet long, has even better things in store for me. One morning,I find her web, which is now deserted, almost intact, a proof that thenight’s hunting has not been good. The animal must be hungry.With a piece of game for a bait, I hope to bring her down from her loftyretreat.

I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a Dragon-fly, who strugglesdesperately and sets the whole net a-shaking. The other, up above,leaves her lurking-place amid the cypress-foliage, strides swiftly downalong her telegraph-wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, trusses her and atonce climbs home again by the same road, with her prize dangling ather heels by a thread. The final sacrifice will take place inthe quiet of the leafy sanctuary.

A few days later, I renew my experiment under the same conditions,but, this time, I first cut the signalling-thread. In vain I selecta large Dragon-fly, a very restless prisoner; in vain I exert my patience:the Spider does not come down all day. Her telegraph being broken,she receives no notice of what is happening nine feet below. Theentangled morsel remains where it lies, not despised, but unknown.At nightfall, the Epeira leaves her cabin, passes over the ruins ofher web, finds the Dragon-fly and eats her on the spot, after whichthe net is renewed.

One of the Epeirae whom I have had the opportunity of examining simplifiesthe system, while retaining the essential mechanism of a transmission-thread.This is the Crater Epeira (Epeira cratera, WALCK.), a speciesseen in spring, at which time she indulges especially in the chase ofthe Domestic Bee, upon the flowering rosemaries. At the leafyend of a branch, she builds a sort of silken shell, the shape and sizeof an acorn-cup. This is where she sits, with her paunch containedin the round cavity and her forelegs resting on the ledge, ready toleap. The lazy creature loves this position and rarely stationsherself head downwards on the web, as do the others. Cosily ensconcedin the hollow of her cup, she awaits the approaching game.

Her web, which is vertical, as is the rule among the Epeirae, isof a fair size and always very near the bowl wherein the Spider takesher ease. Moreover, it touches the bowl by means of an angularextension; and the angle always contains one spoke which the Epeira,seated, so to speak, in her crater, has constantly under her legs.This spoke, springing from the common focus of the vibrations from allparts of the network, is eminently fitted to keep the Spider informedof whatsoever happens. It has a double office: it forms part ofthe Catherine-wheel supporting the lime-threads and it warns the Epeiraby its vibrations. A special thread is here superfluous.

The other snarers, on the contrary, who occupy a distant retreatby day, cannot do without a private wire that keeps them in permanentcommunication with the deserted web. All of them have one, inpoint of fact, but only when age comes, age prone to rest and to longslumbers. In their youth, the Epeirae, who are then very wide-awake,know nothing of the art of telegraphy. Besides, their web, a short-livedwork whereof hardly a trace remains on the morrow, does not allow ofthis kind of industry. It is no use going to the expense of asignalling-apparatus for a ruined snare wherein nothing can now be caught.Only the old Spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, arewarned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the web.

To save herself from keeping a close watch that would degenerateinto drudgery and to remain alive to events even when resting, withher back turned on the net, the ambushed Spider always has her footupon the telegraph-wire. Of my observations on this subject, letme relate the following, which will be sufficient for our purpose.

An Angular Epeira, with a remarkably fine belly, has spun her webbetween two laurestine-shrubs, covering a width of nearly a yard.The sun beats upon the snare, which is abandoned long before dawn.The Spider is in her day manor, a resort easily discovered by followingthe telegraph-wire. It is a vaulted chamber of dead leaves, joinedtogether with a few bits of silk. The refuge is deep: the Spiderdisappears in it entirely, all but her rounded hind-quarters, whichbar the entrance to the donjon.

With her front half plunged into the back of her hut, the Epeiracertainly cannot see her web. Even if she had good sight, insteadof being purblind, her position could not possibly allow her to keepthe prey in view. Does she give up hunting during this period,of bright sunlight? Not at all. Look again.

Wonderful! One of her hind-legs is stretched outside the leafycabin; and the signalling-thread ends just at the tip of that leg.Whoso has not seen the Epeira in this attitude, with her hand, so tospeak, on the telegraph-receiver, knows nothing of one of the most curiousinstances of animal cleverness. Let any game appear upon the scene;and the slumberer, forthwith aroused by means of the leg receiving thevibrations, hastens up. A Locust whom I myself lay on the webprocures her this agreeable shock and what follows. If she issatisfied with her bag, I am still more satisfied with what I have learnt.

The occasion is too good not to find out, under better conditionsas regards approach, what the inhabitant of the cypress-trees has alreadyshown me. The next morning, I cut the telegraph-wire, this timeas long as one’s arm and held, like yesterday, by one of the hind-legsstretched outside the cabin. I then place on the web a doubleprey, a Dragon-fly and a Locust. The latter kicks out with hislong, spurred shanks; the other flutters her wings. The web istossed about to such an extent that a number of leaves, just besidethe Epeira’s nest, move, shaken by the threads of the frameworkaffixed to them.

And this vibration, though so close at hand, does not rouse the Spiderin the least, does not make her even turn round to enquire what is goingon. The moment that her signalling-thread ceases to work, sheknows nothing of passing events. All day long, she remains withoutstirring. In the evening, at eight o’clock, she salliesforth to weave the new web and at last finds the rich windfall whereofshe was hitherto unaware.

One word more. The web is often shaken by the wind. Thedifferent parts of the framework, tossed and teased by the eddying air-currents,cannot fail to transmit their vibration to the signalling-thread.Nevertheless, the Spider does not quit her hut and remains indifferentto the commotion prevailing in the net. Her line, therefore, issomething better than a bell-rope that pulls and communicates the impulsegiven: it is a telephone capable, like our own, of transmitting infinitesimalwaves of sound. Clutching her telephone-wire with a toe, the Spiderlistens with her leg; she perceives the innermost vibrations; she distinguishesbetween the vibration proceeding from a prisoner and the mere shakingcaused by the wind.

CHAPTER XIII: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: PAIRING AND HUNTING

Notwithstanding the importance of the subject, I shall not enlargeupon the nuptials of the Epeirae, grim natures whose loves easily turnto tragedy in the mystery of the night. I have but once been presentat the pairing and for this curious experience I must thank my luckystar and my fat neighbour, the Angular Epeira, whom I visit so oftenby lantern-light. Here you have it.

It is the first week of August, at about nine o’clock in theevening, under a perfect sky, in calm, hot weather. The Spiderhas not yet constructed her web and is sitting motionless on her suspension-cable.The fact that she should be slacking like this, at a time when her building-operationsought to be in full swing, naturally astonishes me. Can somethingunusual be afoot?

Even so. I see hastening up from the neighbouring bushes andembarking on the cable a male, a dwarf, who is coming, the whipper-snapper,to pay his respects to the portly giantess. How has he, in hisdistant corner, heard of the presence of the nymph ripe for marriage?Among the Spiders, these things are learnt in the silence of the night,without a summons, without a signal, none knows how.

Once, the Great Peacock, { 32}apprised by the magic effluvia, used to come from miles around to visitthe recluse in her bell-jar in my study. The dwarf of this evening,that other nocturnal pilgrim, crosses the intricate tangle of the brancheswithout a mistake and makes straight for the rope-walker. He hasas his guide the infallible compass that brings every Jack and his Jilltogether.

He climbs the slope of the suspension-cord; he advances circumspectly,step by step. He stops some distance away, irresolute. Shallhe go closer? Is this the right moment? No. The otherlifts a limb and the scared visitor hurries down again. Recoveringfrom his fright, he climbs up once more, draws a little nearer.More sudden flights, followed by fresh approaches, each time nigherthan before. This restless running to and fro is the declarationof the enamoured swain.

Perseverance spells success. The pair are now face to face,she motionless and grave, he all excitement. With the tip of hisleg, he ventures to touch the plump wench. He has gone too far,daring youth that he is! Panic-stricken, he takes a header, hangingby his safety-line. It is only for a moment, however. Uphe comes again. He has learnt, from certain symptoms, that weare at last yielding to his blandishments.

With his legs and especially with his palpi, or feelers, he teasesthe buxom gossip, who answers with curious skips and bounds. Grippinga thread with her front tarsi, or fingers, she turns, one after theother, a number of back somersaults, like those of an acrobat on thetrapeze. Having done this, she presents the under-part of herpaunch to the dwarf and allows him to fumble at it a little with hisfeelers. Nothing more: it is done.

The object of the expedition is attained. The whipper-snappermakes off at full speed, as though he had the Furies at his heels.If he remained, he would presumably be eaten. These exerciseson the tight-rope are not repeated. I kept watch in vain on thefollowing evenings: I never saw the fellow again.

When he is gone, the bride descends from the cable, spins her weband assumes the hunting-attitude. We must eat to have silk, wemust have silk to eat and especially to weave the expensive cocoon ofthe family. There is therefore no rest, not even after the excitementof being married.

The Epeirae are monuments of patience in their lime-snare.With her head down and her eight legs wide-spread, the Spider occupiesthe centre of the web, the receiving-point of the information sent alongthe spokes. If anywhere, behind or before, a vibration occur,the sign of a capture, the Epeira knows about it, even without the aidof sight. She hastens up at once.

Until then, not a movement: one would think that the animal was hypnotizedby her watching. At most, on the appearance of anything suspicious,she begins shaking her nest. This is her way of inspiring theintruder with awe. If I myself wish to provoke the singular alarm,I have but to tease the Epeira with a bit of straw. You cannothave a swing without an impulse of some sort. The terror-strickenSpider, who wishes to strike terror into others, has hit upon somethingmuch better. With nothing to push her, she swings with her floorof ropes. There is no effort, no visible exertion. Not asingle part of the animal moves; and yet everything trembles.Violent shaking proceeds from apparent inertia. Rest causes commotion.

When calm is restored, she resumes her attitude, ceaselessly ponderingthe harsh problem of life:

‘Shall I dine to-day, or not?’

Certain privileged beings, exempt from those anxieties, have foodin abundance and need not struggle to obtain it. Such is the Gentle,who swims blissfully in the broth of the putrefying adder. Others—and,by a strange irony of fate, these are generally the most gifted—onlymanage to eat by dint of craft and patience.

You are of their company, O my industrious Epeirae! So thatyou may dine, you spend your treasures of patience nightly; and oftenwithout result. I sympathize with your woes, for I, who am asconcerned as you about my daily bread, I also doggedly spread my net,the net for catching ideas, a more elusive and less substantial prizethan the Moth. Let us not lose heart. The best part of lifeis not in the present, still less in the past; it lies in the future,the domain of hope. Let us wait.

All day long, the sky, of a uniform grey, has appeared to be brewinga storm. In spite of the threatened downpour, my neighbour, whois a shrewd weather-prophet, has come out of the cypress-tree and begunto renew her web at the regular hour. Her forecast is correct:it will be a fine night. See, the steaming-pan of the clouds splitsopen; and, through the apertures, the moon peeps, inquisitively.I too, lantern in hand, am peeping. A gust of wind from the northclears the realms on high; the sky becomes magnificent; perfect calmreigns below. The Moths begin their nightly rounds. Good!One is caught, a mighty fine one. The Spider will dine to-day.

What happens next, in an uncertain light, does not lend itself toaccurate observation. It is better to turn to those Garden Spiderswho never leave their web and who hunt mainly in the daytime.The Banded and the Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rosemariesin the enclosure, shall show us in broad day-light the innermost detailsof the tragedy.

I myself place on the lime-snare a victim of my selecting.Its six legs are caught without more ado. If the insect raisesone of its tarsi and pulls towards itself, the treacherous thread follows,unwinds slightly and, without letting go or breaking, yields to thecaptive’s desperate jerks. Any limb released only tanglesthe others still more and is speedily recaptured by the sticky matter.There is no means of escape, except by smashing the trap with a suddeneffort whereof even powerful insects are not always capable.

Warned by the shaking of the net, the Epeira hastens up; she turnsround about the quarry; she inspects it at a distance, so as to ascertainthe extent of the danger before attacking. The strength of thesnareling will decide the plan of campaign. Let us first supposethe usual case, that of an average head of game, a Moth or Fly of somesort. Facing her prisoner, the Spider contracts her abdomen slightlyand touches the insect for a moment with the end of her spinnerets;then, with her front tarsi, she sets her victim spinning. TheSquirrel, in the moving cylinder of his cage, does not display a moregraceful or nimbler dexterity. A cross-bar of the sticky spiralserves as an axis for the tiny machine, which turns, turns swiftly,like a spit. It is a treat to the eyes to see it revolve.

What is the object of this circular motion? See, the briefcontact of the spinnerets has given a starting-point for a thread, whichthe Spider must now draw from her silk-warehouse and gradually rollaround the captive, so as to swathe him in a winding-sheet which willoverpower any effort made. It is the exact process employed inour wire-mills: a motor-driven spool revolves and, by its action, drawsthe wire through the narrow eyelet of a steel plate, making it of thefineness required, and, with the same movement, winds it round and roundits collar.

Even so with the Epeira’s work. The Spider’s fronttarsi are the motor; the revolving spool is the captured insect; thesteel eyelet is the aperture of the spinnerets. To bind the subjectwith precision and dispatch nothing could be better than this inexpensiveand highly-effective method.

Less frequently, a second process is employed. With a quickmovement, the Spider herself turns round about the motionless insect,crossing the web first at the top and then at the bottom and graduallyplacing the fastenings of her line. The great elasticity of thelime-threads allows the Epeira to fling herself time after time rightinto the web and to pass through it without damaging the net.

Let us now suppose the case of some dangerous game: a Praying Mantis,for instance, brandishing her lethal limbs, each hooked and fitted witha double saw; an angry Hornet, darting her awful sting; a sturdy Beetle,invincible under his horny armour. These are exceptional morsels,hardly ever known to the Epeirae. Will they be accepted, if suppliedby my stratagems?

They are, but not without caution. The game is seen to be perilousof approach and the Spider turns her back upon it, instead of facingit; she trains her rope-cannon upon it. Quickly, the hind-legsdraw from the spinnerets something much better than single cords.The whole silk-battery works at one and the same time, firing a regularvolley of ribbons and sheets, which a wide movement of the legs spreadsfan-wise and flings over the entangled prisoner. Guarding againstsudden starts, the Epeira casts her armfuls of bands on the front-andhind-parts, over the legs and over the wings, here, there and everywhere,extravagantly. The most fiery prey is promptly mastered underthis avalanche. In vain, the Mantis tries to open her saw-toothedarm-guards; in vain, the Hornet makes play with her dagger; in vain,the Beetle stiffens his legs and arches his back: a fresh wave of threadsswoops down and paralyses every effort.

These lavished, far-flung ribbons threaten to exhaust the factory;it would be much more economical to resort to the method of the spool;but, to turn the machine, the Spider would have to go up to it and workit with her leg. This is too risky; and hence the continuous sprayof silk, at a safe distance. When all is used up, there is moreto come.

Still, the Epeira seems concerned at this excessive outlay.When circumstances permit, she gladly returns to the mechanism of therevolving spool. I saw her practise this abrupt change of tacticson a big Beetle, with a smooth, plump body, which lent itself admirablyto the rotary process. After depriving the beast of all powerof movement, she went up to it and turned her corpulent victim as shewould have done with a medium-sized Moth.

But with the Praying Mantis, sticking out her long legs and her spreadingwings, rotation is no longer feasible. Then, until the quarryis thoroughly subdued, the spray of bandages goes on continuously, evento the point of drying up the silk-glands. A capture of this kindis ruinous. It is true that, except when I interfered, I havenever seen the Spider tackle that formidable provender.

Be it feeble or strong, the game is now neatly trussed, by one ofthe two methods. The next move never varies. The bound insectis bitten, without persistency and without any wound that shows.The Spider next retires and allows the bite to act, which it soon does.She then returns.

If the victim be small, a Clothes-moth, for instance, it is consumedon the spot, at the place where it was captured. But, for a prizeof some importance, on which she hopes to feast for many an hour, sometimesfor many a day, the Spider needs a sequestered dining-room, where thereis naught to fear from the stickiness of the network. Before goingto it, she first makes her prey turn in the converse direction to thatof the original rotation. Her object is to free the nearest spokes,which supplied pivots for the machinery. They are essential factorswhich it behoves her to keep intact, if need be by sacrificing a fewcross-bars.

It is done; the twisted ends are put back into position. Thewell-trussed game is at last removed from the web and fastened on behindwith a thread. The Spider then marches in front and the load istrundled across the web and hoisted to the resting-floor, which is bothan inspection-post and a dining-hall. When the Spider is of aspecies that shuns the light and possesses a telegraph-line, she mountsto her daytime hiding-place along this line, with the game bumping againsther heels.

While she is refreshing herself, let us enquire into the effectsof the little bite previously administered to the silk-swathed captive.Does the Spider kill the patient with a view to avoiding unseasonablejerks, protests so disagreeable at dinner-time? Several reasonsmake me doubt it. In the first place, the attack is so much veiledas to have all the appearance of a mere kiss. Besides, it is madeanywhere, at the first spot that offers. The expert slayers { 33}employ methods of the highest precision: they give a stab in the neck,or under the throat; they wound the cervical nerve-centres, the seatof energy. The paralyzers, those accomplished anatomists, poisonthe motor nerve-centres, of which they know the number and position.The Epeira possesses none of this fearsome knowledge. She insertsher fangs at random, as the Bee does her sting. She does not selectone spot rather than another; she bites indifferently at whatever comeswithin reach. This being so, her poison would have to possessunparalleled virulence to produce a corpse-like inertia no matter whichthe point attacked. I can scarcely believe in instantaneous deathresulting from the bite, especially in the case of insects, with theirhighly-resistant organisms.

Besides, is it really a corpse that the Epeira wants, she who feedson blood much more than on flesh? It were to her advantage tosuck a live body, wherein the flow of the liquids, set in movement bythe pulsation of the dorsal vessel, that rudimentary heart of insects,must act more freely than in a lifeless body, with its stagnant fluids.The game which the Spider means to suck dry might very well not be dead.This is easily ascertained.

I place some Locusts of different species on the webs in my menagerie,one on this, another on that. The Spider comes rushing up, bindsthe prey, nibbles at it gently and withdraws, waiting for the bite totake effect. I then take the insect and carefully strip it ofits silken shroud. The Locust is not dead, far from it; one wouldeven think that he had suffered no harm. I examine the releasedprisoner through the lens in vain; I can see no trace of a wound.

Can he be unscathed, in spite of the sort of kiss which I saw givento him just now? You would be ready to say so, judging by thefurious way in which he kicks in my fingers. Nevertheless, whenput on the ground, he walks awkwardly, he seems reluctant to hop.Perhaps it is a temporary trouble, caused by his terrible excitementin the web. It looks as though it would soon pass.

I lodge my Locusts in cages, with a lettuce-leaf to console themfor their trials; but they will not be comforted. A day elapses,followed by a second. Not one of them touches the leaf of salad;their appetite has disappeared. Their movements become more uncertain,as though hampered by irresistible torpor. On the second day,they are dead, every one irrecoverably dead.

The Epeira, therefore, does not incontinently kill her prey withher delicate bite; she poisons it so as to produce a gradual weakness,which gives the blood-sucker ample time to drain her victim, withoutthe least risk, before the rigor mortis stops the flow of moisture.

The meal lasts quite twenty-four hours, if the joint be large; andto the very end the butchered insect retains a remnant of life, a favourablecondition for the exhausting of the juices. Once again, we seea skilful method of slaughter, very different from the tactics in useamong the expert paralyzers or slayers. Here there is no displayof anatomical science. Unacquainted with the patient’s structure,the Spider stabs at random. The virulence of the poison does therest.

There are, however, some very few cases in which the bite is speedilymortal. My notes speak of an Angular Epeira grappling with thelargest Dragon-fly in my district (AEshna grandis, LIN.).I myself had entangled in the web this head of big game, which is notoften captured by the Epeirae. The net shakes violently, seemsbound to break its moorings.

The Spider rushes from her leafy villa, runs boldly up to the giantess,flings a single bundle of ropes at her and, without further precautions,grips her with her legs, tries to subdue her and then digs her fangsinto the Dragon-fly’s back. The bite is prolonged in sucha way as to astonish me. This is not the perfunctory kiss withwhich I am already familiar; it is a deep, determined wound. Afterstriking her blow, the Spider retires to a certain distance and waitsfor her poison to take effect.

I at once remove the Dragon-fly. She is dead, really and trulydead. Laid upon my table and left alone for twenty-four hours,she makes not the slightest movement. A prick of which my lenscannot see the marks, so sharp-pointed are the Epeira’s weapons,was enough, with a little insistence, to kill the powerful animal.Proportionately, the Rattlesnake, the Horned Viper, the Trigonocephalusand other ill-famed serpents produce less paralysing effects upon theirvictims.

And these Epeirae, so terrible to insects, I am able to handle withoutany fear. My skin does not suit them. If I persuaded themto bite me, what would happen to me? Hardly anything. Wehave more cause to dread the sting of a nettle than the dagger whichis fatal to Dragon-flies. The same virus acts differently uponthis organism and that, is formidable here and quite mild there.What kills the insect may easily be harmless to us. Let us not,however, generalize too far. The Narbonne Lycosa, that other enthusiasticinsect-huntress, would make us pay clearly if we attempted to take libertieswith her.

It is not uninteresting to watch the Epeira at dinner. I lightupon one, the Banded Epeira, at the moment, about three o’clockin the afternoon, when she has captured a Locust. Planted in thecentre of the web, on her resting-floor, she attacks the venison atthe joint of a haunch. There is no movement, not even of the mouth-parts,as far as I am able to discover. The mouth lingers, close-applied,at the point originally bitten. There are no intermittent mouthfuls,with the mandibles moving backwards and forwards. It is a sortof continuous kiss.

I visit my Epeira at intervals. The mouth does not change itsplace. I visit her for the last time at nine o’clock inthe evening. Matters stand exactly as they did: after six hours’consumption, the mouth is still sucking at the lower end of the righthaunch. The fluid contents of the victim are transferred to theogress’ belly, I know not how.

Next morning, the Spider is still at table. I take away herdish. Naught remains of the Locust but his skin, hardly alteredin shape, but utterly drained and perforated in several places.The method, therefore, was changed during the night. To extractthe non-fluent residue, the viscera and muscles, the stiff cuticle hadto be tapped here, there and elsewhere, after which the tattered husk,placed bodily in the press of the mandibles, would have been chewed,rechewed and finally reduced to a pill, which the sated Spider throwsup. This would have been the end of the victim, had I not takenit away before the time.

Whether she wound or kill, the Epeira bites her captive somewhereor other, no matter where. This is an excellent method on herpart, because of the variety of the game that comes her way. Isee her accepting with equal readiness whatever chance may send her:Butterflies and Dragon-flies, Flies and Wasps, small Dung-beetles andLocusts. If I offer her a Mantis, a Bumble-bee, an Anoxia—theequivalent of the common Cockchafer—and other dishes probablyunknown to her race, she accepts all and any, large and small, thin-skinnedand horny-skinned, that which goes afoot and that which takes wingedflight. She is omnivorous, she preys on everything, down to herown kind, should the occasion offer.

Had she to operate according to individual structure, she would needan anatomical dictionary; and instinct is essentially unfamiliar withgeneralities: its knowledge is always confined to limited points.The Cerceres know their Weevils and their Buprestis-beetles absolutely;the Sphex their Grasshoppers, their Crickets and their Locusts; theScoliae { 34} theirCetonia- and Oryctes-grubs. Even so the other paralyzers.Each has her own victim and knows nothing of any of the others.

The same exclusive tastes prevail among the slayers. Let usremember, in this connection, Philanthus apivorus{ 35}and, especially, the Thomisus, the comely Spider who cuts Bees’throats. They understand the fatal blow, either in the neck orunder the chin, a thing which the Epeira does not understand; but, justbecause of this talent, they are specialists. Their province isthe Domestic Bee.

Animals are a little like ourselves: they excel in an art only oncondition of specializing in it. The Epeira, who, being omnivorous,is obliged to generalize, abandons scientific methods and makes up forthis by distilling a poison capable of producing torpor and even death,no matter what the point attacked.

Recognizing the large variety of game, we wonder how the Epeira managesnot to hesitate amid those many diverse forms, how, for instance, shepasses from the Locust to the Butterfly, so different in appearance.To attribute to her as a guide an extensive zoological knowledge werewildly in excess of what we may reasonably expect of her poor intelligence.The thing moves, therefore it is worth catching: this formula seemsto sum up the Spider’s wisdom.

CHAPTER XIV: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE QUESTION OF PROPERTY

A dog has found a bone. He lies in the shade, holding it betweenhis paws, and studies it fondly. It is his sacred property, hischattel. An Epeira has woven her web. Here again is property;and owning a better title than the other. Favoured by chance andassisted by his scent, the Dog has merely had a find; he has neitherworked nor paid for it. The Spider is more than a casual owner,she has created what is hers. Its substance issued from her body,its structure from her brain. If ever property was sacrosanct,hers is.

Far higher stands the work of the weaver of ideas, who tissues abook, that other Spider’s web, and out of his thought makes somethingthat shall instruct or thrill us. To protect our ‘bone,’we have the police, invented for the express purpose. To protectthe book, we have none but farcical means. Place a few bricksone atop the other; join them with mortar; and the law will defend yourwall. Build up in writing an edifice of your thoughts; and itwill be open to any one, without serious impediment, to abstract stonesfrom it, even to take the whole, if it suit him. A rabbit-hutchis property; the work of the mind is not. If the animal has eccentricviews as regards the possessions of others, we have ours as well.

‘Might always has the best of the argument,’ said LaFontaine, to the great scandal of the peace-lovers. The exigenciesof verse, rhyme and rhythm, carried the worthy fabulist further thanhe intended: he meant to say that, in a fight between mastiffs and inother brute conflicts, the stronger is left master of the bone.He well knew that, as things go, success is no certificate of excellence.Others came, the notorious evil-doers of humanity, who made a law ofthe savage maxim that might is right.

We are the larvae with the changing skins, the ugly caterpillarsof a society that is slowly, very slowly, wending its way to the triumphof right over might. When will this sublime metamorphosis be accomplished?To free ourselves from those wild-beast brutalities, must we wait forthe ocean-plains of the southern hemisphere to flow to our side, changingthe face of continents and renewing the glacial period of the Reindeerand the Mammoth? Perhaps, so slow is moral progress.

True, we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship andother marvellous means of breaking our bones; but our morality is notone rung the higher for it all. One would even say that, the fartherwe proceed in our conquest of matter, the more our morality recedes.The most advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down withgrapeshot and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing thecorn.

Would we see this might triumphant in all its beauty? Let usspend a few weeks in the Epeira’s company. She is the ownerof a web, her work, her most lawful property. The question atonce presents itself: Does the Spider possibly recognize her fabricby certain trademarks and distinguish it from that of her fellows?

I bring about a change of webs between two neighbouring Banded Epeirae.No sooner is either placed upon the strange net than she makes for thecentral floor, settles herself head downwards and does not stir fromit, satisfied with her neighbour’s web as with her own.Neither by day nor by night does she try to shift her quarters and restorematters to their pristine state. Both Spiders think themselvesin their own domain. The two pieces of work are so much alikethat I almost expected this.

I then decide to effect an exchange of webs between two differentspecies. I move the Banded Epeira to the net of the Silky Epeiraand vice versa. The two webs are now dissimilar; the Silky Epeira’shas a limy spiral consisting of closer and more numerous circles.What will the Spiders do, when thus put to the test of the unknown?One would think that, when one of them found meshes too wide for herunder her feet, the other meshes too narrow, they would be frightenedby this sudden change and decamp in terror. Not at all.Without a sign of perturbation, they remain, plant themselves in thecentre and await the coming of the game, as though nothing extraordinaryhad happened. They do more than this. Days pass and, aslong as the unfamiliar web is not wrecked to the extent of being unserviceable,they make no attempt to weave another in their own style. TheSpider, therefore, is incapable of recognizing her web. She takesanother’s work for hers, even when it is produced by a strangerto her race.

We now come to the tragic side of this confusion. Wishing tohave subjects for study within my daily reach and to save myself thetrouble of casual excursions, I collect different Epeirae whom I findin the course of my walks and establish them on the shrubs in my enclosure.In this way, a rosemary-hedge, sheltered from the wind and facing thesun, is turned into a well-stocked menagerie. I take the Spidersfrom the paper bags wherein I had put them separately, to carry them,and place them on the leaves, with no further precaution. It isfor them to make themselves at home. As a rule, they do not budgeall day from the place where I put them: they wait for nightfall beforeseeking a suitable site whereon to weave a net.

Some among them show less patience. A little while ago, theypossessed a web, between the reeds of a brook or in the holm-oak copses;and now they have none. They go off in search, to recover theirproperty or seize on some one else’s: it is all the same to them.I come upon a Banded Epeira, newly imported, making for the web of aSilky Epeira who has been my guest for some days now. The owneris at her post, in the centre of the net. She awaits the strangerwith seeming impassiveness. Then suddenly they grip each other;and a desperate fight begins. The Silky Epeira is worsted.The other swathes her in bonds, drags her to the non-limy central floorand, in the calmest fashion, eats her. The dead Spider is munchedfor twenty-four hours and drained to the last drop, when the corpse,a wretched, crumpled ball, is at last flung aside. The web sofoully conquered becomes the property of the stranger, who uses it,if it have not suffered too much in the contest.

There is here a shadow of an excuse. The two Spiders were ofdifferent species; and the struggle for life often leads to these exterminationsamong such as are not akin. What would happen if the two belongedto the same species? It is easily seen. I cannot rely uponspontaneous invasions, which may be rare under normal conditions, andI myself place a Banded Epeira on her kinswoman’s web. Afurious attack is made forthwith. Victory, after hanging for amoment in the balance, is once again decided in the stranger’sfavour. The vanquished party, this time a sister, is eaten withoutthe slightest scruple. Her web becomes the property of the victor.

There it is, in all its horror, the right of might: to eat one’slike and take away their goods. Man did the same in days of old:he stripped and ate his fellows. We continue to rob one another,both as nations and as individuals; but we no longer eat one another:the custom has grown obsolete since we discovered an acceptable substitutein the mutton-chop.

Let us not, however, blacken the Spider beyond her deserts.She does not live by warring on her kith and kin; she does not of herown accord attempt the conquest of another’s property. Itneeds extraordinary circumstances to rouse her to these villainies.I take her from her web and place her on another’s. Fromthat moment, she knows no distinction between meumand tuum:the thing which the leg touches at once becomes real estate. Andthe intruder, if she be the stronger, ends by eating the occupier, aradical means of cutting short disputes.

Apart from disturbances similar to those provoked by myself, disturbancesthat are possible in the everlasting conflict of events, the Spider,jealous of her own web, seems to respect the webs of others. Shenever indulges in brigandage against her fellows except when dispossessedof her net, especially in the daytime, for weaving is never done byday: this work is reserved for the night. When, however, she isdeprived of her livelihood and feels herself the stronger, then sheattacks her neighbour, rips her open, feeds on her and takes possessionof her goods. Let us make allowances and proceed.

We will now examine Spiders of more alien habits. The Bandedand the Silky Epeira differ greatly in form and colouring. Thefirst has a plump, olive-shaped belly, richly belted with white, bright-yellowand black; the second’s abdomen is flat, of a silky white andpinked into festoons. Judging only by dress and figure, we shouldnot think of closely connecting the two Spiders.

But high above shapes tower tendencies, those main characteristicswhich our methods of classification, so particular about minute detailsof form, ought to consult more widely than they do. The two dissimilarSpiders have exactly similar ways of living. Both of them preferto hunt by day and never leave their webs; both sign their work witha zigzag flourish. Their nets are almost identical, so much sothat the Banded Epeira uses the Silky Epeira’s web after eatingits owner. The Silky Epeira, on her side, when she is the stronger,dispossesses her belted cousin and devours her. Each is at homeon the other’s web, when the argument of might triumphant hasended the discussion.

Let us next take the case of the Cross Spider, a hairy beast of varyingshades of reddish-brown. She has three large white spots uponher back, forming a triple-barred cross. She hunts mostly at night,shuns the sun and lives by day on the adjacent shrubs, in a shady retreatwhich communicates with the lime-snare by means of a telegraph-wire.Her web is very similar in structure and appearance to those of thetwo others. What will happen if I procure her the visit of a BandedEpeira?

The lady of the triple cross is invaded by day, in the full lightof the sun, thanks to my mischievous intermediary. The web isdeserted; the proprietress is in her leafy hut. The telegraph-wireperforms its office; the Cross Spider hastens down, strides all roundher property, beholds the danger and hurriedly returns to her hiding-place,without taking any measures against the intruder.

The latter, on her side, does not seem to be enjoying herself.Were she placed on the web of one of her sisters, or even on that ofthe Silky Epeira, she would have posted herself in the centre, as soonas the struggle had ended in the other’s death. This timethere is no struggle, for the web is deserted; nothing prevents herfrom taking her position in the centre, the chief strategic point; andyet she does not move from the place where I put her.

I tickle her gently with the tip of a long straw. When at home,if teased in this way, the Banded Epeira—like the others, forthat matter—violently shakes the web to intimidate the aggressor.This time, nothing happens: despite my repeated enticements, the Spiderdoes not stir a limb. It is as though she were numbed with terror.And she has reason to be: the other is watching her from her lofty loop-hole.

This is probably not the only cause of her fright. When mystraw does induce her to take a few steps, I see her lift her legs withsome difficulty. She tugs a bit, drags her tarsi till she almostbreaks the supporting threads. It is not the progress of an agilerope-walker; it is the hesitating gait of entangled feet. Perhapsthe lime-threads are stickier than in her own web. The glue isof a different quality; and her sandals are not greased to the extentwhich the new degree of adhesiveness would demand.

Anyhow, things remain as they are for long hours on end: the BandedEpeira motionless on the edge of the web; the other lurking in her hut;both apparently most uneasy. At sunset, the lover of darknessplucks up courage. She descends from her green tent and, withouttroubling about the stranger, goes straight to the centre of the web,where the telegraph-wire brings her. Panic-stricken at this apparition,the Banded Epeira releases herself with a jerk and disappears in therosemary-thicket.

The experiment, though repeatedly renewed with different subjects,gave me no other results. Distrustful of a web dissimilar to herown, if not in structure, at least in stickiness, the bold Banded Epeirashows the white feather and refuses to attack the Cross Spider.The latter, on her side, either does not budge from her day shelterin the foliage, or else rushes back to it, after taking a hurried glanceat the stranger. She here awaits the coming of the night.Under favour of the darkness, which gives her fresh courage and activity,she reappears upon the scene and puts the intruder to flight by hermere presence, aided, if need be, by a cuff or two. Injured rightis the victor.

Morality is satisfied; but let us not congratulate the Spider therefore.If the invader respects the invaded, it is because very serious reasonsimpel her. First, she would have to contend with an adversaryensconced in a stronghold whose ambushes are unknown to the assailant.Secondly, the web, if conquered, would be inconvenient to use, becauseof the lime-threads, possessing a different degree of stickiness fromthose which she knows so well. To risk one’s skin for athing of doubtful value were twice foolish. The Spider knows thisand forbears.

But let the Banded Epeira, deprived of her web, come upon that ofone of her kind or of the Silky Epeira, who works her gummy twine inthe same manner: then discretion is thrown to the winds; the owner isfiercely ripped open and possession taken of the property.

Might is right, says the beast; or, rather, it knows no right.The animal world is a rout of appetites, acknowledging no other reinthan impotence. Mankind, alone capable of emerging from the sloughof the instincts, is bringing equity into being, is creating it slowlyas its conception grows clearer. Out of the sacred rushlight,so flickering as yet, but gaining strength from age to age, man willmake a flaming torch that will put an end, among us, to the principlesof the brutes and, one day, utterly change the face of society.

CHAPTER XV: THE LABYRINTH SPIDER

While the Epeirae, with their gorgeous net-tapestries, are incomparableweavers, many other Spiders excel in ingenious devices for filling theirstomachs and leaving a lineage behind them: the two primary laws ofliving things. Some of them are celebrities of long-standing renown,who are mentioned in all the books.

Certain Mygales { 36}inhabit a burrow, like the Narbonne Lycosa, but of a perfection unknownto the brutal Spider of the waste-lands. The Lycosa surroundsthe mouth of her shaft with a simple parapet, a mere collection of tinypebbles, sticks and silk; the others fix a movable door to theirs, around shutter with a hinge, a groove and a set of bolts. Whenthe Mygale comes home, the lid drops into the groove and fits so exactlythat there is no possibility of distinguishing the join. If theaggressor persist and seek to raise the trap-door, the recluse pushesthe bolt, that is to say, plants her claws into certain holes on theopposite side to the hinge, props herself against the wall and holdsthe door firmly.

Another, the Argyroneta, or Water Spider, builds herself an elegantsilken diving-bell, in which she stores air. Thus supplied withthe wherewithal to breathe, she awaits the coming of the game and keepsherself cool meanwhile. At times of scorching heat, hers mustbe a regular sybaritic abode, such as eccentric man has sometimes venturedto build under water, with mighty blocks of stone and marble.The submarine palaces of Tiberius are no more than an odious memory;the Water Spider’s dainty cupola still flourishes.

If I possessed documents derived from personal observation, I shouldlike to speak of these ingenious workers; I would gladly add a few unpublishedfacts to their life-history. But I must abandon the idea.The Water Spider is not found in my district. The Mygale, theexpert in hinged doors, is found there, but very seldom. I sawone once, on the edge of a path skirting a copse. Opportunity,as we know, is fleeting. The observer, more than any other, isobliged to take it by the forelock. Preoccupied as I was withother researches, I but gave a glance at the magnificent subject whichgood fortune offered. The opportunity fled and has never returned.

Let us make up for it with trivial things of frequent encounter,a condition favourable to consecutive study. What is common isnot necessarily unimportant. Give it our sustained attention andwe shall discover in it merits which our former ignorance preventedus from seeing. When patiently entreated, the least of creaturesadds its note to the harmonies of life.

In the fields around, traversed, in these days, with a tired step,but still vigilantly explored, I find nothing so often as the LabyrinthSpider (Agelena labyrinthica, CLERCK.). Not a hedge butshelters a few at its foot, amidst grass, in quiet, sunny nooks.In the open country and especially in hilly places laid bare by thewood-man’s axe, the favourite sites are tufts of bracken, rock-rose,lavender, everlasting and rosemary cropped close by the teeth of theflocks. This is where I resort, as the isolation and kindlinessof the supports lend themselves to proceedings which might not be toleratedby the unfriendly hedge.

Several times a week, in July, I go to study my Spiders on the spot,at an early hour, before the sun beats fiercely on one’s neck.The children accompany me, each provided with an orange wherewith toslake the thirst that will not be slow in coming. They lend metheir good eyes and supple limbs. The expedition promises to befruitful.

We soon discover high silk buildings, betrayed at a distance by theglittering threads which the dawn has converted into dewy rosaries.The children are wonderstruck at those glorious chandeliers, so muchso that they forget their oranges for a moment. Nor am I, on mypart, indifferent. A splendid spectacle indeed is that of ourSpider’s labyrinth, heavy with the tears of the night and litup by the first rays of the sun. Accompanied as it is by the Thrushes’symphony, this alone is worth getting up for.

Half an hour’s heat; and the magic jewels disappear with thedew. Now is the moment to inspect the webs. Here is onespreading its sheet over a large cluster of rock-roses; it is the sizeof a handkerchief. A profusion of guy-ropes, attached to any chanceprojection, moor it to the brushwood. There is not a twig butsupplies a contact-point. Entwined on every side, surrounded andsurmounted, the bush disappears from view, veiled in white muslin.

The web is flat at the edges, as far as the unevenness of the supportpermits, and gradually hollows into a crater, not unlike the bell ofa hunting-horn. The central portion is a cone-shaped gulf, a funnelwhose neck, narrowing by degrees, dives perpendicularly into the leafythicket to a depth of eight or nine inches.

At the entrance to the tube, in the gloom of that murderous alley,sits the Spider, who looks at us and betrays no great excitement atour presence. She is grey, modestly adorned on the thorax withtwo black ribbons and on the abdomen with two stripes in which whitespecks alternate with brown. At the tip of the belly, two small,mobile appendages form a sort of tail, a rather curious feature in aSpider.

The crater-shaped web is not of the same structure throughout.At the borders, it is a gossamer weft of sparse threads; nearer thecentre, the texture becomes first fine muslin and then satin; lowerstill, on the narrower part of the opening, it is a network of roughlylozenged meshes. Lastly, the neck of the funnel, the usual resting-place,is formed of solid silk.

The Spider never ceases working at her carpet, which represents herinvestigation-platform. Every night she goes to it, walks overit, inspecting her snares, extending her domain and increasing it withnew threads. The work is done with the silk constantly hangingfrom the spinnerets and constantly extracted as the animal moves about.The neck of the funnel, being more often walked upon than the rest ofthe dwelling, is therefore provided with a thicker upholstery.Beyond it are the slopes of the crater, which are also much-frequentedregions. Spokes of some regularity fix the diameter of the mouth;a swaying walk and the guiding aid of the caudal appendages have laidlozengy meshes across these spokes. This part has been strengthenedby the nightly rounds of inspection. Lastly come the less-visitedexpanses, which consequently have a thinner carpet.

At the bottom of the passage dipping into the brushwood, we mightexpect to find a secret cabin, a wadded cell where the Spider wouldtake refuge in her hours of leisure. The reality is somethingentirely different. The long funnel-neck gapes at its lower end,where a private door stands always ajar, allowing the animal, when hard-pushed,to escape through the grass and gain the open.

It is well to know this arrangement of the home, if you wish to capturethe Spider without hurting her. When attacked from the front,the fugitive runs down and slips through the postern-gate at the bottom.To look for her by rummaging in the brushwood often leads to nothing,so swift is her flight; besides, a blind search entails a great riskof maiming her. Let us eschew violence, which is but seldom successful,and resort to craft.

We catch sight of the Spider at the entrance to her tube. Ifpracticable, squeeze the bottom of the tuft, containing the neck ofthe funnel, with both hands. That is enough; the animal is caught.Feeling its retreat cut off, it readily darts into the paper bag heldout to it; if necessary, it can be stimulated with a bit of straw.In this way, I fill my cages with subjects that have not been demoralizedby contusions.

The surface of the crater is not exactly a snare. It is justpossible for the casual pedestrian to catch his legs in the silky carpets;but giddy-pates who come here for a walk must be very rare. Whatis wanted is a trap capable of securing the game that hops or flies.The Epeira has her treacherous limed net; the Spider of the bushes hasher no less treacherous labyrinth.

Look above the web. What a forest of ropes! It mightbe the rigging of a ship disabled by a storm. They run from everytwig of the supporting shrubs, they are fastened to the tip of everybranch. There are long ropes and short ropes, upright and slanting,straight and bent, taut and slack, all criss-cross and a-tangle, tothe height of three feet or so in inextricable disorder. The wholeforms a chaos of netting, a labyrinth which none can pass through, unlesshe be endowed with wings of exceptional power.

We have here nothing similar to the lime-threads used by the GardenSpiders. The threads are not sticky; they act only by their confusedmultitude. Would you care to see the trap at work? Throwa small Locust into the rigging. Unable to obtain a steady footholdon that shaky support, he flounders about; and the more he strugglesthe more he entangles his shackles. The Spider, spying on thethreshold of her abyss, lets him have his way. She does not runup the shrouds of the mast-work to seize the desperate prisoner; shewaits until his bonds of threads, twisted backwards and forwards, makehim fall on the web.

He falls; the other comes and flings herself upon her prostrate prey.The attack is not without danger. The Locust is demoralized ratherthan tied up; it is merely bits of broken thread that he is trailingfrom his legs. The bold assailant does not mind. Withouttroubling, like the Epeirae, to bury her capture under a paralysingwinding-sheet, she feels it, to make sure of its quality, and then,regardless of kicks, inserts her fangs.

The bite is usually given at the lower end of a haunch: not thatthis place is more vulnerable than any other thin-skinned part, butprobably because it has a better flavour. The different webs whichI inspect to study the food in the larder show me, among other joints,various Flies and small Butterflies and carcasses of almost-untouchedLocusts, all deprived of their hind-legs, or at least of one.Locusts’ legs often dangle, emptied of their succulent contents,on the edges of the web, from the meat-hooks of the butcher’sshop. In my urchin-days, days free from prejudices in regard towhat one ate, I, like many others, was able to appreciate that dainty.It is the equivalent, on a very small scale, of the larger legs of theCrayfish.

The rigging-builder, therefore, to whom we have just thrown a Locustattacks the prey at the lower end of a thigh. The bite is a lingeringone: once the Spider has planted her fangs, she does not let go.She drinks, she sips, she sucks. When this first point is drained,she passes on to others, to the second haunch in particular, until theprey becomes an empty hulk without losing its outline.

We have seen that Garden Spiders feed in a similar way, bleedingtheir venison and drinking it instead of eating it. At last, however,in the comfortable post-prandial hours, they take up the drained morsel,chew it, rechew it and reduce it to a shapeless ball. It is adessert for the teeth to toy with. The Labyrinth Spider knowsnothing of the diversions of the table; she flings the drained remnantsout of her web, without chewing them. Although it lasts long,the meal is eaten in perfect safety. From the first bite, theLocust becomes a lifeless thing; the Spider’s poison has settledhim.

The labyrinth is greatly inferior, as a work of art, to that advancedgeometrical contrivance, the Garden Spider’s net; and, in spiteof its ingenuity, it does not give a favourable notion of its constructor.It is hardly more than a shapeless scaffolding, run up anyhow.And yet, like the others, the builder of this slovenly edifice musthave her own principles of beauty and accuracy. As it is, theprettily-latticed mouth of the crater makes us suspect this; the nest,the mother’s usual masterpiece, will prove it to the full.

When laying-time is at hand, the Spider changes her residence; sheabandons her web in excellent condition; she does not return to it.Whoso will can take possession of the house. The hour has cometo found the family-establishment. But where? The Spiderknows right well; I am in the dark. Mornings are spent in fruitlesssearches. In vain I ransack the bushes that carry the webs: Inever find aught that realizes my hopes.

I learn the secret at last. I chance upon a web which, thoughdeserted, is not yet dilapidated, proving that it has been but latelyquitted. Instead of hunting in the brushwood whereon it rests,let us inspect the neighbourhood, to a distance of a few paces.If these contain a low, thick cluster, the nest is there, hidden fromthe eye. It carries an authentic certificate of its origin, forthe mother invariably occupies it.

By this method of investigation, far from the labyrinth-trap, I becomethe owner of as many nests as are needed to satisfy my curiosity.They do not by a long way come up to my idea of the maternal talent.They are clumsy bundles of dead leaves, roughly drawn together withsilk threads. Under this rude covering is a pouch of fine texturecontaining the egg-casket, all in very bad condition, because of theinevitable tears incurred in its extrication from the brushwood.No, I shall not be able to judge of the artist’s capacity by theserags and tatters.

The insect, in its buildings, has its own architectural rules, rulesas unchangeable as anatomical peculiarities. Each group buildsaccording to the same set of principles, conforming to the laws of avery elementary system of aesthetics; but often circumstances beyondthe architect’s control—the space at her disposal, the unevennessof the site, the nature of the material and other accidental causes—interferewith the worker’s plans and disturb the structure. Thenvirtual regularity is translated into actual chaos; order degeneratesinto disorder.

We might discover an interesting subject of research in the typeadopted by each species when the work is accomplished without hindrances.The Banded Epeira weaves the wallet of her eggs in the open, on a slimbranch that does not get in her way; and her work is a superbly artisticjar. The Silky Epeira also has all the elbow-room she needs; andher paraboloid is not without elegance. Can the Labyrinth Spider,that other spinstress of accomplished merit, be ignorant of the preceptsof beauty when the time comes for her to weave a tent for her offspring?As yet, what I have seen of her work is but an unsightly bundle.Is that all she can do?

I look for better things if circumstances favour her. Toilingin the midst of a dense thicket, among a tangle of dead leaves and twigs,she may well produce a very inaccurate piece of work; but compel herto labour when free from all impediment: she will then—I am convincedof it beforehand—apply her talents without constraint and showherself an adept in the building of graceful nests.

As laying-time approaches, towards the middle of August, I instalhalf-a-dozen Labyrinth Spiders in large wire-gauze cages, each standingin an earthen pan filled with sand. A sprig of thyme, plantedin the centre, will furnish supports for the structure, together withthe trellis-work of the top and sides. There is no other furniture,no dead leaves, which would spoil the shape of the nest if the motherwere minded to employ them as a covering. By way of provision,Locusts, every day. They are readily accepted, provided they betender and not too large.

The experiment works perfectly. August is hardly over beforeI am in possession of six nests, magnificent in shape and of a dazzlingwhiteness. The latitude of the workshop has enabled the spinstressto follow the inspiration of her instinct without serious obstacles;and the result is a masterpiece of symmetry and elegance, if we allowfor a few angularities demanded by the suspension-points.

It is an oval of exquisite white muslin, a diaphanous abode whereinthe mother must make a long stay to watch over the brood. Thesize is nearly that of a Hen’s egg. The cabin is open ateither end. The front-entrance broadens into a gallery; the back-entrancetapers into a funnel-neck. I fail to see the object of this neck.As for the opening in front, which is wider, this is, beyond a doubt,a victualling-door. I see the Spider, at intervals, standing hereon the look-out for the Locust, whom she consumes outside, taking carenot to soil the spotless sanctuary with corpses.

The structure of the nest is not without a certain similarity tothat of the home occupied during the hunting-season. The passageat the back represents the funnel-neck, that ran almost down to theground and afforded an outlet for flight in case of grave danger.The one in front, expanding into a mouth kept wide open by cords stretchedbackwards and forwards, recalls the yawning gulf into which the victimsused to fall. Every part of the old dwelling is repeated: eventhe labyrinth, though this, it is true, is on a much smaller scale.In front of the bell-shaped mouth is a tangle of threads wherein thepassers-by are caught. Each species, in this way, possesses aprimary architectural model which is followed as a whole, in spite ofaltered conditions. The animal knows its trade thoroughly, butit does not know and will never know aught else, being incapable oforiginality.

Now this palace of silk, when all is said, is nothing more than aguard-house. Behind the soft, milky opalescence of the wall glimmersthe egg-tabernacle, with its form vaguely suggesting the star of someorder of knighthood. It is a large pocket, of a splendid dead-white,isolated on every side by radiating pillars which keep it motionlessin the centre of the tapestry. These pillars are about ten innumber and are slender in the middle, expanding at one end into a conicalcapital and at the other into a base of the same shape. They faceone another and mark the position of the vaulted corridors which allowfree movement in every direction around the central chamber. Themother walks gravely to and fro under the arches of her cloisters, shestops first here, then there; she makes a lengthy auscultation of theegg-wallet; she listens to all that happens inside the satin wrapper.To disturb her would be barbarous.

For a closer examination, let us use the dilapidated nests whichwe brought from the fields. Apart from its pillars, the egg-pocketis an inverted conoid, reminding us of the work of the Silky Epeira.Its material is rather stout; my pincers, pulling at it, do not tearit without difficulty. Inside the bag there is nothing but anextremely fine, white wadding and, lastly, the eggs, numbering abouta hundred and comparatively large, for they measure a millimetre anda half. { 37}They are very pale amber-yellow beads, which do not stick together andwhich roll freely as soon as I remove the swan’s-down shroud.Let us put everything into a glass-tube to study the hatching.

We will now retrace our steps a little. When laying-time comes,the mother forsakes her dwelling, her crater into which her fallingvictims dropped, her labyrinth in which the flight of the Midges wascut short; she leaves intact the apparatus that enabled her to liveat her ease. Thoughtful of her natural duties, she goes to foundanother establishment at a distance. Why at a distance?

She has still a few long months to live and she needs nourishment.Were it not better, then, to lodge the eggs in the immediate neighbourhoodof the present home and to continue her hunting with the excellent snareat her disposal? The watching of the nest and the easy acquisitionof provender would go hand in hand. The Spider is of another opinion;and I suspect the reason.

The sheet-net and the labyrinth that surmounts it are objects visiblefrom afar, owing to their whiteness and the height whereat they areplaced. Their scintillation in the sun, in frequented paths, attractsMosquitoes and Butterflies, like the lamps in our rooms and the fowler’slooking-glass. Whoso comes to look at the bright thing too closelydies the victim of his curiosity. There is nothing better forplaying upon the folly of the passer-by, but also nothing more dangerousto the safety of the family.

Harpies will not fail to come running at this signal, showing upagainst the green; guided by the position of the web, they will assuredlyfind the precious purse; and a strange grub, feasting on a hundred new-laideggs, will ruin the establishment. I do not know these enemies,not having sufficient materials at my disposal for a register of theparasites; but, from indications gathered elsewhere, I suspect them.

The Banded Epeira, trusting to the strength of her stuff, fixes hernest in the sight of all, hangs it on the brushwood, taking no precautionswhatever to hide it. And a bad business it proves for her.Her jar provides me with an Ichneumon { 38}possessed of the inoculating larding-pin: a Cryptuswho, as agrub, had fed on Spiders’ eggs. Nothing but empty shellswas left inside the central keg; the germs were completely exterminated.There are other Ichneumon-flies, moreover, addicted to robbing Spiders’nests; a basket of fresh eggs is their offspring’s regular food.

Like any other, the Labyrinth Spider dreads the scoundrelly adventof the pickwallet; she provides for it and, to shield herself againstit as far as possible, chooses a hiding-place outside her dwelling,far removed from the tell-tale web. When she feels her ovariesripen, she shifts her quarters; she goes off at night to explore theneighbourhood and seek a less dangerous refuge. The points selectedare, by preference, the low brambles dragging along the ground, keepingtheir dense verdure during the winter and crammed with dead leaves fromthe oaks hard by. Rosemary-tufts, which gain in thickness whatthey lose in height on the unfostering rock, suit her particularly.This is where I usually find her nest, not without long seeking, sowell is it hidden.

So far, there is no departure from current usage. As the worldis full of creatures on the prowl for tender mouthfuls, every motherhas her apprehensions; she also has her natural wisdom, which advisesher to establish her family in secret places. Very few neglectthis precaution; each, in her own manner, conceals the eggs she lays.

In the case of the Labyrinth Spider, the protection of the broodis complicated by another condition. In the vast majority of instances,the eggs, once lodged in a favourable spot, are abandoned to themselves,left to the chances of good or ill fortune. The Spider of thebrushwood, on the contrary, endowed with greater maternal devotion,has, like the Crab Spider, to mount guard over hers until they hatch.

With a few threads and some small leaves joined together, the CrabSpider builds, above her lofty nest, a rudimentary watch-tower whereshe stays permanently, greatly emaciated, flattened into a sort of wrinkledshell through the emptying of her ovaries and the total absence of food.And this mere shred, hardly more than a skin that persists in livingwithout eating, stoutly defends her egg-sack, shows fight at the approachof any tramp. She does not make up her mind to die until the littleones are gone.

The Labyrinth Spider is better treated. After laying her eggs,so far from becoming thin, she preserves an excellent appearance anda round belly. Moreover, she does not lose her appetite and isalways prepared to bleed a Locust. She therefore requires a dwellingwith a hunting-box close to the eggs watched over. We know thisdwelling, built in strict accordance with artistic canons under theshelter of my cages.

Remember the magnificent oval guard-room, running into a vestibuleat either end; the egg-chamber slung in the centre and isolated on everyside by half a score of pillars; the front-hall expanding into a widemouth and surmounted by a network of taut threads forming a trap.The semi-transparency of the walls allows us to see the Spider engagedin her household affairs. Her cloister of vaulted passages enablesher to proceed to any point of the star-shaped pouch containing theeggs. Indefatigable in her rounds, she stops here and there; shefondly feels the satin, listens to the secrets of the wallet.If I shake the net at any point with a straw, she quickly runs up toenquire what is happening. Will this vigilance frighten off theIchneumon and other lovers of omelettes? Perhaps so. But,though this danger be averted, others will come when the mother is nolonger there.

Her attentive watch does not make her overlook her meals. Oneof the Locusts whereof I renew the supply at intervals in the cagesis caught in the cords of the great entrance-hall. The Spiderarrives hurriedly, snatches the giddy-pate and disjoints his shanks,which she empties of their contents, the best part of the insect.The remainder of the carcass is afterwards drained more or less, accordingto her appetite at the time. The meal is taken outside the guard-room,on the threshold, never indoors.

These are not capricious mouthfuls, serving to beguile the boredomof the watch for a brief while; they are substantial repasts, whichrequire several sittings. Such an appetite astonishes me, afterI have seen the Crab Spider, that no less ardent watcher, refuse theBees whom I give her and allow herself to die of inanition. Canthis other mother have so great a need as that to eat? Yes, certainlyshe has; and for an imperative reason.

At the beginning of her work, she spent a large amount of silk, perhapsall that her reserves contained; for the double dwelling—for herselfand for her offspring—is a huge edifice, exceedingly costly inmaterials; and yet, for nearly another month, I see her adding layerupon layer both to the wall of the large cabin and to that of the centralchamber, so much so that the texture, which at first was translucentgauze, becomes opaque satin. The walls never seem thick enough;the Spider is always working at them. To satisfy this lavish expenditure,she must incessantly, by means of feeding, fill her silk-glands as andwhen she empties them by spinning. Food is the means whereby shekeeps the inexhaustible factory going.

A month passes and, about the middle of September, the little oneshatch, but without leaving their tabernacle, where they are to spendthe winter packed in soft wadding. The mother continues to watchand spin, lessening her activity from day to day. She recruitsherself with a Locust at longer intervals; she sometimes scorns thosewhom I myself entangle in her trap. This increasing abstemiousness,a sign of decrepitude, slackens and at last stops the work of the spinnerets.

For four or five weeks longer, the mother never ceases her leisurelyinspection-rounds, happy at hearing the new-born Spiders swarming inthe wallet. At length, when October ends, she clutches her offspring’snursery and dies withered. She has done all that maternal devotioncan do; the special providence of tiny animals will do the rest.When spring comes, the youngsters will emerge from their snug habitation,disperse all over the neighbourhood by the expedient of the floatingthread and weave their first attempts at a labyrinth on the tufts ofthyme.

Accurate in structure and neat in silk-work though they be, the nestsof the caged captives do not tell us everything; we must go back towhat happens in the fields, with their complicated conditions.Towards the end of December, I again set out in search, aided by allmy youthful collaborators. We inspect the stunted rosemaries alongthe edge of a path sheltered by a rocky, wooded slope; we lift the branchesthat spread over the ground. Our zeal is rewarded with success.In a couple of hours, I am the owner of some nests.

Pitiful pieces of work are they, injured beyond recognition by theassaults of the weather! It needs the eyes of faith to see inthese ruins the equivalent of the edifices built inside my cages.Fastened to the creeping branch, the unsightly bundle lies on the sandheaped up by the rains. Oak-leaves, roughly joined by a few threads,wrap it all round. One of these leaves, larger than the others,roofs it in and serves as a scaffolding for the whole of the ceiling.If we did not see the silky remnants of the two vestibules projectingand feel a certain resistance when separating the parts of the bundle,we might take the thing for a casual accumulation, the work of the rainand the wind.

Let us examine our find and look more closely into its shapelessness.Here is the large room, the maternal cabin, which rips as the coatingof leaves is removed; here are the circular galleries of the guard-room;here are the central chamber and its pillars, all in a fabric of immaculatewhite. The dirt from the damp ground has not penetrated to thisdwelling protected by its wrapper of dead leaves.

Now open the habitation of the offspring. What is this?To my utter astonishment, the contents of the chamber are a kernel ofearthy matters, as though the muddy rain-water had been allowed to soakthrough. Put aside that idea, says the satin wall, which itselfis perfectly clean inside. It is most certainly the mother’sdoing, a deliberate piece of work, executed with minute care.The grains of sand are stuck together with a cement of silk; and thewhole resists the pressure of the fingers.

If we continue to unshell the kernel, we find, below this minerallayer, a last silken tunic that forms a globe around the brood.No sooner do we tear this final covering than the frightened littleones run away and scatter with an agility that is singular at this coldand torpid season.

To sum up, when working in the natural state, the Labyrinth Spiderbuilds around the eggs, between two sheets of satin, a wall composedof a great deal of sand and a little silk. To stop the Ichneumon’sprobe and the teeth of the other ravagers, the best thing that occurredto her was this hoarding which combines the hardness of flint with thesoftness of muslin.

This means of defence seems to be pretty frequent among Spiders.Our own big House Spider, Tegenaria domestica, encloses her eggsin a globule strengthened with a rind of silk and of crumbly wreckagefrom the mortar of the walls. Other species, living in the openunder stones, work in the same way. They wrap their eggs in amineral shell held together with silk. The same fears have inspiredthe same protective methods.

Then how comes it that, of the five mothers reared in my cages, notone has had recourse to the clay rampart? After all, sand abounded:the pans in which the wire-gauze covers stood were full of it.On the other hand, under normal conditions, I have often come acrossnests without any mineral casing. These incomplete nests wereplaced at some height from the ground, in the thick of the brushwood;the others, on the contrary, those supplied with a coating of sand,lay on the ground.

The method of the work explains these differences. The concreteof our buildings is obtained by the simultaneous manipulation of graveland mortar. In the same way, the Spider mixes the cement of thesilk with the grains of sand; the spinnerets never cease working, whilethe legs fling under the adhesive spray the solid materials collectedin the immediate neighbourhood. The operation would be impossibleif, after cementing each grain of sand, it were necessary to stop thework of the spinnerets and go to a distance to fetch further stony elements.Those materials have to be right under her legs; otherwise the Spiderdoes without and continues her work just the same.

In my cages, the sand is too far off. To obtain it, the Spiderwould have to leave the top of the dome, where the nest is being builton its trellis-work support; she would have to come down some nine inches.The worker refuses to take this trouble, which, if repeated in the caseof each grain, would make the action of the spinnerets too irksome.She also refuses to do so when, for reasons which I have not fathomed,the site chosen is some way up in the tuft of rosemary. But, whenthe nest touches the ground, the clay rampart is never missing.

Are we to see in this fact proof of an instinct capable of modification,either making for decadence and gradually neglecting what was the ancestors’safeguard, or making for progress and advancing, hesitatingly, towardsperfection in the mason’s art? No inference is permissiblein either direction. The Labyrinth Spider has simply taught usthat instinct possesses resources which are employed or left latentaccording to the conditions of the moment. Place sand under herlegs and the spinstress will knead concrete; refuse her that sand, orput it out of her reach, and the Spider will remain a simple silk-worker,always ready, however, to turn mason under favourable conditions.The aggregate of things that come within the observer’s scopeproves that it were mad to expect from her any further innovations,such as would utterly change her methods of manufacture and cause her,for instance, to abandon her cabin, with its two entrance-halls andits star-like tabernacle, in favour of the Banded Epeira’s pear-shapedgourd.

CHAPTER XVI: THE CLOTHO SPIDER

She is named Durand’s Clotho (Clotho Durandi, LATR.),in memory of him who first called attention to this particular Spider.To enter on eternity under the safe-conduct of a diminutive animal whichsaves us from speedy oblivion under the mallows and rockets is no contemptibleadvantage. Most men disappear without leaving an echo to repeattheir name; they lie buried in forgetfulness, the worst of graves.

Others, among the naturalists, benefit by the designation given tothis or that object in life’s treasure-house: it is the skiffwherein they keep afloat for a brief while. A patch of lichenon the bark of an old tree, a blade of grass, a puny beastie: any oneof these hands down a man’s name to posterity as effectively asa new comet. For all its abuses, this manner of honouring thedeparted is eminently respectable. If we would carve an epitaphof some duration, what could we find better than a Beetle’s wing-case,a Snail’s shell or a Spider’s web? Granite is worthnone of them. Entrusted to the hard stone, an inscription becomesobliterated; entrusted to a Butterfly’s wing, it is indestructible.‘Durand,’ therefore, by all means.

But why drag in ‘Clotho’? Is it the whim of a nomenclator,at a loss for words to denote the ever-swelling tide of beasts thatrequire cataloguing? Not entirely. A mythological name cameto his mind, one which sounded well and which, moreover, was not outof place in designating a spinstress. The Clotho of antiquityis the youngest of the three Fates; she holds the distaff whence ourdestinies are spun, a distaff wound with plenty of rough flocks, justa few shreds of silk and, very rarely, a thin strand of gold.

Prettily shaped and clad, as far as a Spider can be, the Clotho ofthe naturalists is, above all, a highly talented spinstress; and thisis the reason why she is called after the distaff-bearing deity of theinfernal regions. It is a pity that the analogy extends no further.The mythological Clotho, niggardly with her silk and lavish with hercoarse flocks, spins us a harsh existence; the eight-legged Clotho usesnaught but exquisite silk. She works for herself; the other worksfor us, who are hardly worth the trouble.

Would we make her acquaintance? On the rocky slopes in theoliveland, scorched and blistered by the sun, turn over the flat stones,those of a fair size; search, above all, the piles which the shepherdsset up for a seat whence to watch the sheep browsing amongst the lavenderbelow. Do not be too easily disheartened: the Clotho is rare;not every spot suits her. If fortune smile at last upon our perseverance,we shall see, clinging to the lower surface of the stone which we havelifted, an edifice of a weather-beaten aspect, shaped like an over-turnedcupola and about the size of half a tangerine orange. The outsideis encrusted or hung with small shells, particles of earth and, especially,dried insects.

The edge of the cupola is scalloped into a dozen angular lobes, thepoints of which spread and are fixed to the stone. In betweenthese straps is the same number of spacious inverted arches. Thewhole represents the Ishmaelite’s camel-hair tent, but upsidedown. A flat roof, stretched between the straps, closes the topof the dwelling.

Then where is the entrance? All the arches of the edge openupon the roof; not one leads to the interior. The eye seeks invain; there is nothing to point to a passage between the inside andthe outside. Yet the owner of the house must go out from timeto time, were it only in search of food; on returning from her expedition,she must go in again. How does she make her exits and her entrances?A straw will tell us the secret.

Pass it over the threshold of the various arches. Everywhere,the searching straw encounters resistance; everywhere, it finds theplace rigorously closed. But one of the scallops, differing inno wise from the others in appearance, if cleverly coaxed, opens atthe edge into two lips and stands slightly ajar. This is the door,which at once shuts again of its own elasticity. Nor is this all:the Spider, when she returns home, often bolts herself in, that is tosay, she joins and fastens the two leaves of the door with a littlesilk.

The Mason Mygale is no safer in her burrow, with its lid undistinguishablefrom the soil and moving on a hinge, than is the Clotho in her tent,which is inviolable by any enemy ignorant of the device. The Clotho,when in danger, runs quickly home; she opens the chink with a touchof her claw, enters and disappears. The door closes of itselfand is supplied, in case of need, with a lock consisting of a few threads.No burglar, led astray by the multiplicity of arches, one and all alike,will ever discover how the fugitive vanished so suddenly.

While the Clotho displays a more simple ingenuity as regards herdefensive machinery, she is incomparably ahead of the Mygale in thematter of domestic comfort. Let us open her cabin. Whatluxury! We are taught how a Sybarite of old was unable to rest,owing to the presence of a crumpled rose-leaf in his bed. TheClotho is quite as fastidious. Her couch is more delicate thanswan’s-down and whiter than the fleece of the clouds where broodthe summer storms. It is the ideal blanket. Above is a canopyor tester of equal softness. Between the two nestles the Spider,short-legged, clad in sombre garments, with five yellow favours on herback.

Rest in this exquisite retreat demands perfect stability, especiallyon gusty days, when sharp draughts penetrate beneath the stone.This condition is admirably fulfilled. Take a careful look atthe habitation. The arches that gird the roof with a balustradeand bear the weight of the edifice are fixed to the slab by their extremities.Moreover, from each point of contact, there issues a cluster of divergingthreads that creep along the stone and cling to it throughout theirlength, which spreads afar. I have measured some fully nine incheslong. These are so many cables; they represent the ropes and pegsthat hold the Arab’s tent in position. With such supportsas these, so numerous and so methodically arranged, the hammock cannotbe torn from its bearings save by the intervention of brutal methodswith which the Spider need not concern herself, so seldom do they occur.

Another detail attracts our attention: whereas the interior of thehouse is exquisitely clean, the outside is covered with dirt, bits ofearth, chips of rotten wood, little pieces of gravel. Often thereare worse things still: the exterior of the tent becomes a charnel-house.Here, hung up or embedded, are the dry carcasses of Opatra, Asidae andother Tenebrionidae { 39}that favour underrock shelters; segments of Iuli, { 40}bleached by the sun; shells of Pupae, { 41}common among the stones; and, lastly, Snail-shells, selected from amongthe smallest.

These relics are obviously, for the most part, table-leavings, brokenvictuals. Unversed in the trapper’s art, the Clotho coursesher game and lives upon the vagrants who wander from one stone to another.Whoso ventures under the slab at night is strangled by the hostess;and the dried-up carcass, instead of being flung to a distance, is hungto the silken wall, as though the Spider wished to make a bogey-houseof her home. But this cannot be her aim. To act like theogre who hangs his victims from the castle battlements is the worstway to disarm suspicion in the passers-by whom you are lying in waitto capture.

There are other reasons which increase our doubts. The shellshung up are most often empty; but there are also some occupied by theSnail, alive and untouched. What can the Clotho do with a Pupacinerea, a Pupa quadridensand other narrow spirals whereinthe animal retreats to an inaccessible depth? The Spider is incapableof breaking the calcareous shell or of getting at the hermit throughthe opening. Then why should she collect those prizes, whose slimyflesh is probably not to her taste? We begin to suspect a simplequestion of ballast and balance. The House Spider, or Tegenariadomestica, prevents her web, spun in a corner of the wall, fromlosing its shape at the least breath of air, by loading it with crumblingplaster and allowing tiny fragments of mortar to accumulate. Arewe face to face with a similar process? Let us try experiment,which is preferable to any amount of conjecture.

To rear the Clotho is not an arduous undertaking; we are not obligedto take the heavy flagstone, on which the dwelling is built, away withus. A very simple operation suffices. I loosen the fasteningswith my pocket-knife. The Spider has such stay-at-home ways thatshe very rarely makes off. Besides, I use the utmost discretionin my rape of the house. And so I carry away the building, togetherwith its owner, in a paper bag.

The flat stones, which are too heavy to move and which would occupytoo much room upon my table, are replaced either by deal disks, whichonce formed part of cheese-boxes, or by round pieces of cardboard.I arrange each silken hammock under one of these by itself, fasteningthe angular projections, one by one, with strips of gummed paper.The whole stands on three short pillars and gives a very fair imitationof the underrock shelter in the form of a small dolmen. Throughoutthis operation, if you are careful to avoid shocks and jolts, the Spiderremains indoors. Finally, each apparatus is placed under a wire-gauze,bell-shaped cage, which stands in a dish filled with sand.

We can have an answer by the next morning. If, among the cabinsswung from the ceilings of the deal or cardboard dolmens, there be onethat is all dilapidated, that was seriously knocked out of shape atthe time of removal, the Spider abandons it during the night and instalsherself elsewhere, sometimes even on the trellis-work of the wire cage.

The new tent, the work of a few hours, attains hardly the diameterof a two-franc piece. It is built, however, on the same principlesas the old manor-house and consists of two thin sheets laid one abovethe other, the upper one flat and forming a tester, the lower curvedand pocket-shaped. The texture is extremely delicate: the leasttrifle would deform it, to the detriment of the available space, whichis already much reduced and only just sufficient for the recluse.

Well, what has the Spider done to keep the gossamer stretched, tosteady it and to make it retain its greatest capacity? Exactlywhat our static treatises would advise her to do: she has ballastedher structure, she has done her best to lower its centre of gravity.From the convex surface of the pocket hang long chaplets of grains ofsand strung together with slender silken cords. To these sandystalactites, which form a bushy beard, are added a few heavy lumps hungseparately and lower down, at the end of a thread. The whole isa piece of ballast-work, an apparatus for ensuring equilibrium and tension.

The present edifice, hastily constructed in the space of a night,is the frail rough sketch of what the home will afterwards become.Successive layers will be added to it; and the partition-wall will growinto a thick blanket capable of partly retaining, by its own weight,the requisite curve and capacity. The Spider now abandons thestalactites of sand, which were used to keep the original pocket stretched,and confines herself to dumping down on her abode any more or less heavyobject, mainly corpses of insects, because she need not look for theseand finds them ready to hand after each meal. They are weights,not trophies; they take the place of materials that must otherwise becollected from a distance and hoisted to the top. In this way,a breastwork is obtained that strengthens and steadies the house.Additional equilibrium is often supplied by tiny shells and other objectshanging a long way down.

What would happen if one robbed an old dwelling, long since completed,of its outer covering? In case of such a disaster, would the Spidergo back to the sandy stalactites, as a ready means of restoring stability?This is easily ascertained. In my hamlets under wire, I selecta fair-sized cabin. I strip the exterior, carefully removing anyforeign body. The silk reappears in its original whiteness.The tent looks magnificent, but seems to me too limp.

This is also the Spider’s opinion. She sets to work,next evening, to put things right. And how? Once more withhanging strings of sand. In a few nights, the silk bag bristleswith a long, thick beard of stalactites, a curious piece of work, excellentlyadapted to maintain the web in an unvaried curve. Even so arethe cables of a suspension-bridge steadied by the weight of the superstructure.

Later, as the Spider goes on feeding, the remains of the victualsare embedded in the wall, the sand is shaken and gradually drops awayand the home resumes its charnel-house appearance. This bringsus to the same conclusion as before: the Clotho knows her statics; bymeans of additional weights, she is able to lower the centre of gravityand thus to give her dwelling the proper equilibrium and capacity.

Now what does she do in her softly-wadded home? Nothing, thatI know of. With a full stomach, her legs luxuriously stretchedover the downy carpet, she does nothing, thinks of nothing; she listensto the sound of earth revolving on its axis. It is not sleep,still less is it waking; it is a middle state where naught prevailssave a dreamy consciousness of well-being. We ourselves, whencomfortably in bed, enjoy, just before we fall asleep, a few momentsof bliss, the prelude to cessation of thought and its train of worries;and those moments are among the sweetest in our lives. The Clothoseems to know similar moments and to make the most of them.

If I push open the door of the cabin, invariably I find the Spiderlying motionless, as though in endless meditation. It needs theteasing of a straw to rouse her from her apathy. It needs theprick of hunger to bring her out of doors; and, as she is extremelytemperate, her appearances outside are few and far between. Duringthree years of assiduous observation, in the privacy of my study, Ihave not once seen her explore the domain of the wire cage by day.Not until a late hour at night does she venture forth in quest of victuals;and it is hardly feasible to follow her on her excursions.

Patience once enabled me to find her, at ten o’clock in theevening, taking the air on the flat roof of her house, where she wasdoubtless waiting for the game to pass. Startled by the lightof my candle, the lover of darkness at once returned indoors, refusingto reveal any of her secrets. Only, next day, there was one morecorpse hanging from the wall of the cabin, a proof that the chase wassuccessfully resumed after my departure.

The Clotho, who is not only nocturnal, but also excessively shy,conceals her habits from us; she shows us her works, those precioushistorical documents, but hides her actions, especially the laying,which I estimate approximately to take place in October. The sumtotal of the eggs is divided into five or six small, flat, lentiformpockets, which, taken together, occupy the greater part of the maternalhome. These capsules have each their own partition-wall of superbwhite satin, but they are so closely soldered, both together and tothe floor of the house, that it is impossible to part them without tearingthem, impossible, therefore, to obtain them separately. The eggsin all amount to about a hundred.

The mother sits upon the heap of pockets with the same devotion asa brooding hen. Maternity has not withered her. Althoughdecreased in bulk, she retains an excellent look of health; her roundbelly and her well-stretched skin tell us from the first that her partis not yet wholly played.

The hatching takes place early. November has not arrived beforethe pockets contain the young: wee things clad in black, with five yellowspecks, exactly like their elders. The new-born do not leave theirrespective nurseries. Packed close together, they spend the wholeof the wintry season there, while the mother, squatting on the pileof cells, watches over the general safety, without knowing her familyother than by the gentle trepidations felt through the partitions ofthe tiny chambers. The Labyrinth Spider has shown us how she maintainsa permanent sitting for two months in her guard-room, to defend, incase of need, the brood which she will never see. The Clotho doesthe same during eight months, thus earning the right to set eyes fora little while on her family trotting around her in the main cabin andto assist at the final exodus, the great journey undertaken at the endof a thread.

When the summer heat arrives, in June, the young ones, probably aidedby their mother, pierce the walls of their cells, leave the maternaltent, of which they know the secret outlet well, take the air on thethreshold for a few hours and then fly away, carried to some distanceby a funicular aeroplane, the first product of their spinning-mill.

The elder Clotho remains behind, careless of this emigration whichleaves her alone. She is far from being faded indeed, she looksyounger than ever. Her fresh colour, her robust appearance suggestgreat length of life, capable of producing a second family. Onthis subject I have but one document, a pretty far-reaching one, however.There were a few mothers whose actions I had the patience to watch,despite the wearisome minutiae of the rearing and the slowness of theresult. These abandoned their dwellings after the departure oftheir young; and each went to weave a new one for herself on the wirenet-work of the cage.

They were rough-and-ready summaries, the work of a night. Twohangings, one above the other, the upper one flat, the lower concaveand ballasted with stalactites of grains of sand, formed the new home,which, strengthened daily by fresh layers, promised to become similarto the old one. Why does the Spider desert her former mansion,which is in no way dilapidated—far from it—and still exceedinglyserviceable, as far as one can judge? Unless I am mistaken, Ithink I have an inkling of the reason.

The old cabin, comfortably wadded though it be, possesses seriousdisadvantages: it is littered with the ruins of the children’snurseries. These ruins are so close-welded to the rest of thehome that my forceps cannot extract them without difficulty; and toremove them would be an exhausting business for the Clotho and possiblybeyond her strength. It is a case of the resistance of Gordianknots, which not even the very spinstress who fastened them is capableof untying. The encumbering litter, therefore, will remain.

If the Spider were to stay alone, the reduction of space, when allis said, would hardly matter to her: she wants so little room, merelyenough to move in! Besides, when you have spent seven or eightmonths in the cramping presence of those bedchambers, what can be thereason of a sudden need for greater space? I see but one: theSpider requires a roomy habitation, not for herself—she is satisfiedwith the smallest den—but for a second family. Where isshe to place the pockets of eggs, if the ruins of the previous layingremain in the way? A new brood requires a new home. That,no doubt, is why, feeling that her ovaries are not yet dried up, theSpider shifts her quarters and founds a new establishment.

The facts observed are confined to this change of dwelling.I regret that other interests and the difficulties attendant upon along upbringing did not allow me to pursue the question and definitelyto settle the matter of the repeated layings and the longevity of theClotho, as I did in that of the Lycosa.

Before taking leave of this Spider, let us glance at a curious problemwhich has already been set by the Lycosa’s offspring. Whencarried for seven months on the mother’s back, they keep in trainingas agile gymnasts without taking any nourishment. It is a familiarexercise for them, after a fall, which frequently occurs, to scrambleup a leg of their mount and nimbly to resume their place in the saddle.They expend energy without receiving any material sustenance.

The sons of the Clotho, the Labyrinth Spider and many others confrontus with the same riddle: they move, yet do not eat. At any periodof the nursery stage, even in the heart of winter, on the bleak daysof January, I tear the pockets of the one and the tabernacle of theother, expecting to find the swarm of youngsters lying in a state ofcomplete inertia, numbed by the cold and by lack of food. Well,the result is quite different. The instant their cells are brokenopen, the anchorites run out and flee in every direction as nimbly asat the best moments of their normal liberty. It is marvellousto see them scampering about. No brood of Partridges, stumbledupon by a Dog, scatters more promptly.

Chicks, while still no more than tiny balls of yellow fluff, hastenup at the mother’s call and scurry towards the plate of rice.Habit has made us indifferent to the spectacle of those pretty littleanimal machines, which work so nimbly and with such precision; we payno attention, so simple does it all appear to us. Science examinesand looks at things differently. She says to herself:

‘Nothing is made with nothing. The chick feeds itself;it consumes or rather it assimilates and turns the food into heat, whichis converted into energy.’

Were any one to tell us of a chick which, for seven or eight monthson end, kept itself in condition for running, always fit, always brisk,without taking the least beakful of nourishment from the day when itleft the egg, we could find no words strong enough to express our incredulity.Now this paradox of activity maintained without the stay of food isrealized by the Clotho Spider and others.

I believe I have made it sufficiently clear that the young Lycosaetake no food as long as they remain with their mother. Strictlyspeaking, doubt is just admissible, for observation is needs dumb asto what may happen earlier or later within the mysteries of the burrow.It seems possible that the repleted mother may there disgorge to herfamily a mite of the contents of her crop. To this suggestionthe Clotho undertakes to make reply.

Like the Lycosa, she lives with her family; but the Clotho is separatedfrom them by the walls of the cells in which the little ones are hermeticallyenclosed. In this condition, the transmission of solid nourishmentbecomes impossible. Should any one entertain a theory of nutritivehumours cast up by the mother and filtering through the partitions atwhich the prisoners might come and drink, the Labyrinth Spider wouldat once dispel the idea. She dies a few weeks after her youngare hatched; and the children, still locked in their satin bed-chamberfor the best part of the year, are none the less active.

Can it be that they derive sustenance from the silken wrapper?Do they eat their house? The supposition is not absurd, for wehave seen the Epeirae, before beginning a new web, swallow the ruinsof the old. But the explanation cannot be accepted, as we learnfrom the Lycosa, whose family boasts no silky screen. In short,it is certain that the young, of whatever species, take absolutely nonourishment.

Lastly, we wonder whether they may possess within themselves reservesthat come from the egg, fatty or other matters the gradual combustionof which would be transformed into mechanical force. If the expenditureof energy were of but short duration, a few hours or a few days, wecould gladly welcome this idea of a motor viaticum, the attribute ofevery creature born into the world. The chick possesses it ina high degree: it is steady on its legs, it moves for a little whilewith the sole aid of the food wherewith the egg furnishes it; but soon,if the stomach is not kept supplied, the centre of energy becomes extinctand the bird dies. How would the chick fare if it were expected,for seven or eight months without stopping, to stand on its feet, torun about, to flee in the face of danger? Where would it stowthe necessary reserves for such an amount of work?

The little Spider, in her turn, is a minute particle of no size atall. Where could she store enough fuel to keep up mobility duringso long a period? The imagination shrinks in dismay before thethought of an atom endowed with inexhaustible motive oils.

We must needs, therefore, appeal to the immaterial, in particularto heat-rays coming from the outside and converted into movement bythe organism. This is nutrition of energy reduced to its simplestexpression: the motive heat, instead of being extracted from the food,is utilized direct, as supplied by the sun, which is the seat of alllife. Inert matter has disconcerting secrets, as witness radium;living matter has secrets of its own, which are more wonderful still.Nothing tells us that science will not one day turn the suspicion suggestedby the Spider into an established truth and a fundamental theory ofphysiology.

APPENDIX: THE GEOMETRY OF THE EPEIRA’S WEB

I find myself confronted with a subject which is not only highlyinteresting, but somewhat difficult: not that the subject is obscure;but it presupposes in the reader a certain knowledge of geometry: astrong meat too often neglected. I am not addressing geometricians,who are generally indifferent to questions of instinct, nor entomologicalcollectors, who, as such, take no interest in mathematical theorems;I write for any one with sufficient intelligence to enjoy the lessonswhich the insect teaches.

What am I to do? To suppress this chapter were to leave outthe most remarkable instance of Spider industry; to treat it as it shouldbe treated, that is to say, with the whole armoury of scientific formulae,would be out of place in these modest pages. Let us take a middlecourse, avoiding both abstruse truths and complete ignorance.

Let us direct our attention to the nets of the Epeirae, preferablyto those of the Silky Epeira and the Banded Epeira, so plentiful inthe autumn, in my part of the country, and so remarkable for their bulk.We shall first observe that the radii are equally spaced; the anglesformed by each consecutive pair are of perceptibly equal value; andthis in spite of their number, which in the case of the Silky Epeiraexceeds two score. We know by what strange means the Spider attainsher ends and divides the area wherein the web is to be warped into alarge number of equal sectors, a number which is almost invariable inthe work of each species. An operation without method, governed,one might imagine, by an irresponsible whim, results in a beautifulrose-window worthy of our compasses.

We shall also notice that, in each sector, the various chords, theelements of the spiral windings, are parallel to one another and graduallydraw closer together as they near the centre. With the two radiatinglines that frame them they form obtuse angles on one side and acuteangles on the other; and these angles remain constant in the same sector,because the chords are parallel.

There is more than this: these same angles, the obtuse as well asthe acute, do not alter in value, from one sector to another, at anyrate so far as the conscientious eye can judge. Taken as a whole,therefore, the rope-latticed edifice consists of a series of cross-barsintersecting the several radiating lines obliquely at angles of equalvalue.

By this characteristic we recognize the ‘logarithmic spiral.’Geometricians give this name to the curve which intersects obliquely,at angles of unvarying value, all the straight lines or ‘radiivectores’ radiating from a centre called the ‘Pole.’The Epeira’s construction, therefore, is a series of chords joiningthe intersections of a logarithmic spiral with a series of radii.It would become merged in this spiral if the number of radii were infinite,for this would reduce the length of the rectilinear elements indefinitelyand change this polygonal line into a curve.

To suggest an explanation why this spiral has so greatly exercisedthe meditations of science, let us confine ourselves for the presentto a few statements of which the reader will find the proof in any treatiseon higher geometry.

The logarithmic spiral describes an endless number of circuits aroundits pole, to which it constantly draws nearer without ever being ableto reach it. This central point is indefinitely inaccessible ateach approaching turn. It is obvious that this property is beyondour sensory scope. Even with the help of the best philosophicalinstruments, our sight could not follow its interminable windings andwould soon abandon the attempt to divide the invisible. It isa volute to which the brain conceives no limits. The trained mind,alone, more discerning than our retina, sees clearly that which defiesthe perceptive faculties of the eye.

The Epeira complies to the best of her ability with this law of theendless volute. The spiral revolutions come closer together asthey approach the pole. At a given distance, they stop abruptly;but, at this point, the auxiliary spiral, which is not destroyed inthe central region, takes up the thread; and we see it, not withoutsome surprise, draw nearer to the pole in ever-narrowing and scarcelyperceptible circles. There is not, of course, absolute mathematicalaccuracy, but a very close approximation to that accuracy. TheEpeira winds nearer and nearer round her pole, so far as her equipment,which, like our own, is defective, will allow her. One would believeher to be thoroughly versed in the laws of the spiral.

I will continue to set forth, without explanations, some of the propertiesof this curious curve. Picture a flexible thread wound round alogarithmic spiral. If we then unwind it, keeping it taut thewhile, its free extremity will describe a spiral similar at all pointsto the original. The curve will merely have changed places.

Jacques Bernouilli, { 42}to whom geometry owes this magnificent theorem, had engraved on histomb, as one of his proudest titles to fame, the generating spiral andits double, begotten of the unwinding of the thread. An inscriptionproclaimed, ‘Eadem mutata resurgo: I rise again like untomyself.’ Geometry would find it difficult to better thissplendid flight of fancy towards the great problem of the hereafter.

There is another geometrical epitaph no less famous. Cicero,when quaestor in Sicily, searching for the tomb of Archimedes amid thethorns and brambles that cover us with oblivion, recognized it, amongthe ruins, by the geometrical figure engraved upon the stone: the cylindercircumscribing the sphere. Archimedes, in fact, was the firstto know the approximate relation of circumference to diameter; fromit he deduced the perimeter and surface of the circle, as well as thesurface and volume of the sphere. He showed that the surface andvolume of the last-named equal two-thirds of the surface and volumeof the circumscribing cylinder. Disdaining all pompous inscription,the learned Syracusan honoured himself with his theorem as his soleepitaph. The geometrical figure proclaimed the individual’sname as plainly as would any alphabetical characters.

To have done with this part of our subject, here is another propertyof the logarithmic spiral. Roll the curve along an indefinitestraight line. Its pole will become displaced while still keepingon one straight line. The endless scroll leads to rectilinearprogression; the perpetually varied begets uniformity.

Now is this logarithmic spiral, with its curious properties, merelya conception of the geometers, combining number and extent, at will,so as to imagine a tenebrous abyss wherein to practise their analyticalmethods afterwards? Is it a mere dream in the night of the intricate,an abstract riddle flung out for our understanding to browse upon?

No, it is a reality in the service of life, a method of constructionfrequently employed in animal architecture. The Mollusc, in particular,never rolls the winding ramp of the shell without reference to the scientificcurve. The first-born of the species knew it and put it into practice;it was as perfect in the dawn of creation as it can be to-day.

Let us study, in this connection, the Ammonites, those venerablerelics of what was once the highest expression of living things, atthe time when the solid land was taking shape from the oceanic ooze.Cut and polished length-wise, the fossil shows a magnificent logarithmicspiral, the general pattern of the dwelling which was a pearl palace,with numerous chambers traversed by a siphuncular corridor.

To this day, the last representative of the Cephalopoda with partitionedshells, the Nautilus of the Southern Seas, remains faithful to the ancientdesign; it has not improved upon its distant predecessors. Ithas altered the position of the siphuncle, has placed it in the centreinstead of leaving it on the back, but it still whirls its spiral logarithmicallyas did the Ammonites in the earliest ages of the world’s existence.

And let us not run away with the idea that these princes of the Mollusctribe have a monopoly of the scientific curve. In the stagnantwaters of our grassy ditches, the flat shells, the humble Planorbes,sometimes no bigger than a duckweed, vie with the Ammonite and the Nautilusin matters of higher geometry. At least one of them, Planorbisvortex, for example, is a marvel of logarithmic whorls.

In the long-shaped shells, the structure becomes more complex, thoughremaining subject to the same fundamental laws. I have beforemy eyes some species of the genus Terebra, from New Caledonia.They are extremely tapering cones, attaining almost nine inches in length.Their surface is smooth and quite plain, without any of the usual ornaments,such as furrows, knots or strings of pearls. The spiral edificeis superb, graced with its own simplicity alone. I count a scoreof whorls which gradually decrease until they vanish in the delicatepoint. They are edged with a fine groove.

I take a pencil and draw a rough generating line to this cone; and,relying merely on the evidence of my eyes, which are more or less practisedin geometric measurements, I find that the spiral groove intersectsthis generating line at an angle of unvarying value.

The consequence of this result is easily deduced. If projectedon a plane perpendicular to the axis of the shell, the generating linesof the cone would become radii; and the groove which winds upwards fromthe base to the apex would be converted into a plane curve which, meetingthose radii at an unvarying angle, would be neither more nor less thana logarithmic spiral. Conversely, the groove of the shell maybe considered as the projection of this spiral on a conic surface.

Better still. Let us imagine a plane perpendicular to the aidsof the shell and passing through its summit. Let us imagine, moreover,a thread wound along the spiral groove. Let us unroll the thread,holding it taut as we do so. Its extremity will not leave theplane and will describe a logarithmic spiral within it. It is,in a more complicated degree, a variant of Bernouilli’s ‘Eademmutata resurgo:’ the logarithmic conic curve becomes a logarithmicplane curve.

A similar geometry is found in the other shells with elongated cones,Turritellae, Spindle-shells, Cerithia, as well as in the shells withflattened cones, Trochidae, Turbines. The spherical shells, thosewhirled into a volute, are no exception to this rule. All, downto the common Snail-shell, are constructed according to logarithmiclaws. The famous spiral of the geometers is the general plan followedby the Mollusc rolling its stone sheath.

Where do these glairy creatures pick up this science? We aretold that the Mollusc derives from the Worm. One day, the Worm,rendered frisky by the sun, emancipated itself, brandished its tailand twisted it into a corkscrew for sheer glee. There and thenthe plan of the future spiral shell was discovered.

This is what is taught quite seriously, in these days, as the verylast word in scientific progress. It remains to be seen up towhat point the explanation is acceptable. The Spider, for herpart, will have none of it. Unrelated to the appendix-lacking,corkscrew-twirling Worm, she is nevertheless familiar with the logarithmicspiral. From the celebrated curve she obtains merely a sort offramework; but, elementary though this framework be, it clearly marksthe ideal edifice. The Epeira works on the same principles asthe Mollusc of the convoluted shell.

The Mollusc has years wherein to construct its spiral and it usesthe utmost finish in the whirling process. The Epeira, to spreadher net, has but an hour’s sitting at the most, wherefore thespeed at which she works compels her to rest content with a simplerproduction. She shortens the task by confining herself to a skeletonof the curve which the other describes to perfection.

The Epeira, therefore, is versed in the geometric secrets of theAmmonite and the Nautilus pompilus; she uses, in a simpler form,the logarithmic line dear to the Snail. What guides her?There is no appeal here to a wriggle of some kind, as in the case ofthe Worm that ambitiously aspires to become a Mollusc. The animalmust needs carry within itself a virtual diagram of its spiral.Accident, however fruitful in surprises we may presume it to be, cannever have taught it the higher geometry wherein our own intelligenceat once goes astray, without a strict preliminary training.

Are we to recognize a mere effect of organic structure in the Epeira’sart? We readily think of the legs, which, endowed with a veryvarying power of extension, might serve as compasses. More orless bent, more or less outstretched, they would mechanically determinethe angle whereat the spiral shall intersect the radius; they wouldmaintain the parallel of the chords in each sector.

Certain objections arise to affirm that, in this instance, the toolis not the sole regulator of the work. Were the arrangement ofthe thread determined by the length of the legs, we should find thespiral volutes separated more widely from one another in proportionto the greater length of implement in the spinstress. We see thisin the Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira. The first has longerlimbs and spaces her cross-threads more liberally than does the second,whose legs are shorter.

But we must not rely too much on this rule, say others. TheAngular Epeira, the Paletinted Epeira and the Cross Spider, all threemore or less short-limbed, rival the Banded Epeira in the spacing oftheir lime-snares. The last two even dispose them with greaterintervening distances.

We recognize in another respect that the organization of the animaldoes not imply an immutable type of work. Before beginning thesticky spiral, the Epeirae first spin an auxiliary intended to strengthenthe stays. This spiral, formed of plain, non-glutinous thread,starts from the centre and winds in rapidly-widening circles to thecircumference. It is merely a temporary construction, whereofnaught but the central part survives when the Spider has set its limymeshes. The second spiral, the essential part of the snare, proceeds,on the contrary, in serried coils from the circumference to the centreand is composed entirely of viscous cross-threads.

Here we have, following one after the other merely by a sudden alterationof the machine, two volutes of an entirely different order as regardsdirection, the number of whorls and intersection. Both of themare logarithmic spirals. I see no mechanism of the legs, be theylong or short, that can account for this alteration.

Can it then be a premeditated design on the part of the Epeira?Can there be calculation, measurement of angles, gauging of the parallelby means of the eye or otherwise? I am inclined to think thatthere is none of all this, or at least nothing but an innate propensity,whose effects the animal is no more able to control than the floweris able to control the arrangement of its verticils. The Epeirapractises higher geometry without knowing or caring. The thingworks of itself and takes its impetus from an instinct imposed uponcreation from the start.

The stone thrown by the hand returns to earth describing a certaincurve; the dead leaf torn and wafted away by a breath of wind makesits journey from the tree to the ground with a similar curve.On neither the one side nor the other is there any action by the movingbody to regulate the fall; nevertheless, the descent takes place accordingto a scientific trajectory, the ‘parabola,’ of which thesection of a cone by a plane furnished the prototype to the geometer’sspeculations. A figure, which was at first but a tentative glimpse,becomes a reality by the fall of a pebble out of the vertical.

The same speculations take up the parabola once more, imagine itrolling on an indefinite straight line and ask what course does thefocus of this curve follow. The answer comes: The focus of theparabola describes a ‘catenary,’ a line very simple in shape,but endowed with an algebraic symbol that has to resort to a kind ofcabalistic number at variance with any sort of numeration, so much sothat the unit refuses to express it, however much we subdivide the unit.It is called the number e. Its value is represented bythe following series carried out ad infinitum:

e = 1 + 1/1 + 1/(1*2) + 1/(1*2*3) + 1/(1*2*3*4) + 1/(1*2*3*4*5)+ etc

If the reader had the patience to work out the few initial termsof this series, which has no limit, because the series of natural numeralsitself has none, he would find:

e=2.7182818...

With this weird number are we now stationed within the strictly definedrealm of the imagination? Not at all: the catenary appears actuallyevery time that weight and flexibility act in concert. The nameis given to the curve formed by a chain suspended by two of its pointswhich are not placed on a vertical line. It is the shape takenby a flexible cord when held at each end and relaxed; it is the linethat governs the shape of a sail bellying in the wind; it is the curveof the nanny-goat’s milk-bag when she returns from filling hertrailing udder. And all this answers to the number e.

What a quantity of abstruse science for a bit of string! Letus not be surprised. A pellet of shot swinging at the end of athread, a drop of dew trickling down a straw, a splash of water ripplingunder the kisses of the air, a mere trifle, after all, requires a titanicscaffolding when we wish to examine it with the eye of calculation.We need the club of Hercules to crush a fly.

Our methods of mathematical investigation are certainly ingenious;we cannot too much admire the mighty brains that have invented them;but how slow and laborious they appear when compared with the smallestactualities! Will it never be given to us to probe reality ina simpler fashion? Will our intelligence be able one day to dispensewith the heavy arsenal of formulae? Why not?

Here we have the abracadabric number ereappearing, inscribedon a Spider’s thread. Let us examine, on a misty morning,the meshwork that has been constructed during the night. Owingto their hygrometrical nature, the sticky threads are laden with tinydrops, and, bending under the burden, have become so many catenaries,so many chaplets of limpid gems, graceful chaplets arranged in exquisiteorder and following the curve of a swing. If the sun pierce themist, the whole lights up with iridescent fires and becomes a resplendentcluster of diamonds. The number eis in its glory.

Geometry, that is to say, the science of harmony in space, presidesover everything. We find it in the arrangement of the scales ofa fir-cone, as in the arrangement of an Epeira’s limy web; wefind it in the spiral of a Snail-shell, in the chaplet of a Spider’sthread, as in the orbit of a planet; it is everywhere, as perfect inthe world of atoms as in the world of immensities.

And this universal geometry tells us of an Universal Geometrician,whose divine compass has measured all things. I prefer that, asan explanation of the logarithmic curve of the Ammonite and the Epeira,to the Worm screwing up the tip of its tail. It may not perhapsbe in accordance with latter-day teaching, but it takes a loftier flight.

FOOTNOTES

{ 1} A smallor moderate-sized spider found among foliage.—Translator’sNote.

{ 2} LéonDufour (1780-1865) was an army surgeon who served with distinction inseveral campaigns and subsequently practised as a doctor in the Landes.He attained great eminence as a naturalist.—Translator’sNote.

{ 3} The Tarantulais a Lycosa, or Wolf-spider. Fabre’s Tarantula, the Black-belliedTarantula, is identical with the Narbonne Lycosa, under which name thedescription is continued in Chapters iii. to vi., all of which werewritten at a considerably later date than the present chapter.—Translator’sNote.

{ 4} GiorgioBaglivi (1669-1707), professor of anatomy and medicine at Rome.—Translator’sNote.

{ 5} ‘Whenour husbandmen wish to catch them, they approach their hiding-places,and play on a thin grass pipe, making a sound not unlike the hummingof bees. Hearing which, the Tarantula rushes out fiercely thatshe may catch the flies or other insects of this kind, whose buzzingshe thinks it to be; but she herself is caught by her rustic trapper.’

{ 6} Provençalfor the bit of waste ground on which the author studies his insectsin the natural state.—Translator’s note.

{ 7} ‘Thanksto the Bumble-bee.’

{ 8} Like theDung-beetles.—Translator’s Note.

{ 9} Like theSolitary Wasps.—Translator’s Note.

{ 10} Suchas the Hairy Ammophila, the Cerceris and the Languedocian Sphex, Digger-waspsdescribed in other of the author’s essays.—Translator’sNote.

{ 11} Thedesnucador, the Argentine slaughterman whose methods of slayingcattle are detailed in the author’s essay entitled, The Theoryof Instinct.—Translator’s Note.

{ 12} A familyof Grasshoppers.—Translator’s Note.

{ 13} A genusof Beetles.—Translator’s Note.

{ 14} A speciesof Digger-wasp.—Translator’s Note.

{ 15} TheCicada is the Cigale, an insect akin to the Grasshopper and foundmore particularly in the South of France.—Translator’s Note.

{ 16} Thegeneric title of the work from which these essays are taken is EntomologicalMemories, or, Studies relating to the Instinct and Habits of Insects.—Translator’sNote.

{ 17} A speciesof Grasshopper.—Translator’s Note.

{ 18} Aninsect akin to the Locusts and Crickets, which, when at rest, adoptsan attitude resembling that of prayer. When attacking, it assumeswhat is known as ‘the spectral attitude.’ Its forelegsform a sort of saw-like or barbed harpoons. Cf. Social Life inthe Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall: chaps.v. to vii.—Translator’s Note.

{ 19} .39inch.—Translator’s Note.

{ 20} Theseexperiments are described in the author’s essay on the Mason Beesentitled Fragments on Insect Psychology.—Translator’s Note.

{ 21} A speciesof Wasp.—Translator’s Note.

{ 22} InChap. VIII. of the present volume.—Translator’s Note.

{ 23} JulesMichelet (1798-1874), author of L’Oiseau and L’Insecte,in addition to the historical works for which he is chiefly known.As a lad, he helped his father, a printer by trade, in setting type.—Translator’sNote.

{ 24} ChapterIII. of the present volume.—Translator’s Note.

{ 25} A speciesof Dung-beetle. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect, byJ. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. v.—Translator’sNote.

{ 26} A speciesof Beetle.—Translator’s Note.

{ 27} Cf.Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre, translated by the author of MademoiselleMori: chaps. i. and ii.; The Life and Love of the Insect, by J. HenriFabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i. to iv.—Translator’sNote.

{ 28} ChapterII.—Translator’s Note.

{ 29} .39inch.—Translator’s Note.

{ 30} TheProcessionaries are Moth-caterpillars that feed on various leaves andmarch in file, laying a silken trail as they go.—Translator’sNote.

{ 31} Theweekly half-holiday in French schools.—Translator’s Note.

{ 32} Cf.Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by BernardMiall: chap. xiv.—Translator’s Note.

{ 33} Cf.Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre, translated by the author of MademoiselleMori: chap. v.—Translator’s Note.

{ 34} TheScolia is a Digger-wasp, like the Cerceris and the Sphex, and feedsher larvae on the grubs of the Cetonia, or Rose-chafer, and the Oryctes,or Rhinoceros Beetle. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect, byJ. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi.—Translator’sNote.

{ 35} Cf.Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by BernardMiall. chap. xiii., in which the name is given, by a printer’serror, as Philanthus aviporus.—Translator’s Note.

{ 36} OrBird Spiders, known also as the American Tarantula.—Translator’sNote.

{ 37} .059inch.—Translator’s Note.

{ 38} TheIchneumon-flies are very small insects which carry long ovipositors,wherewith they lay their eggs in the eggs of other insects and also,more especially, in caterpillars. Their parasitic larvae liveand develop at the expense of the egg or grub attacked, which degeneratesin consequence.—Translator’s Note.

{ 39} Oneof the largest families of Beetles, darkish in colour and shunning thelight.—Translator’s Note.

{ 40} TheIulus is one of the family of Myriapods, which includes Centipedes,etc.—Translator’s Note.

{ 41} A speciesof Land-snail.—Translator’s Note.

{ 42} JacquesBernouilli (1654-1705), professor of mathematics at the University ofBasel from 1687 to the year of his death. He improved the differentialcalculus, solved the isoperimetrical problem and discovered the propertiesof the logarithmic spiral.—Translator’s Note.

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