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Title: The Life of the Spider

Author: J. Henri Fabre

Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

Release Date: September, 1999 [eBook #1887]
[Most recently updated: June 8, 2021]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: David Price

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THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER


CHAPTER I: THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA


The Spider has a bad name: to most of us, she represents an odious,
noxious animal, which every one hastens to crush under foot.  Against
this summary verdict the observer sets the beast's industry, its talent
as a weaver, its wiliness in the chase, its tragic nuptials and other
characteristics of great interest.  Yes, the Spider is well worth
studying, apart from any scientific reasons; but she is said to be
poisonous and that is her crime and the primary cause of the repugnance
wherewith she inspires us.  Poisonous, I agree, if by that we understand
that the animal is armed with two fangs which cause the immediate death
of the little victims which it catches; but there is a wide difference
between killing a Midge and harming a man.  However immediate in its
effects upon the insect entangled in the fatal web, the Spider's poison
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 majority
of the Spiders of our regions.

Nevertheless, a few are to be feared; and foremost among these is the
Malmignatte, the terror of the Corsican peasantry.  I have seen her
settle in the furrows, lay out her web and rush boldly at insects larger
than herself; I have admired her garb of black velvet speckled with
carmine-red; above all, I have heard most disquieting stories told about
her.  Around Ajaccio and Bonifacio, her bite is reputed very dangerous,
sometimes mortal.  The countryman declares this for a fact and the doctor
does not always dare deny it.  In the neighbourhood of Pujaud, not far
from Avignon, the harvesters speak with dread of _Theridion lugubre_, {1}
first observed by Leon Dufour in the Catalonian mountains; according to
them, her bite would lead to serious accidents.  The Italians have
bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsions and
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 Italian
Spider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy, so
they tell us.  Special tunes have been noted, those quickest to afford
relief.  There is medical choreography, medical music.  And have we not
the tarantella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathed to 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, in weak and very
impressionable people, a nervous disorder which music will relieve;
nothing tells us that a profuse perspiration, resulting from a very
energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfort by diminishing
the cause of the ailment.  So far from laughing, I reflect and enquire,
when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of his Tarantula, the Pujaud
reaper of his _Theridion lugubre_, the Corsican husbandman 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 myself
especially in matters of instinct; but, as the poison-fangs play a
leading part in the huntress' manoeuvres of war, I shall speak of their
effects by the way.  The habits of the Tarantula, her ambushes, her
artifices, her methods of killing her prey: these constitute my subject.
I will preface it with an account by Leon Dufour, {2} one of those
accounts in which I used to delight and which did much to bring me into
closer touch with the insect.  The Wizard of the Landes tells us of the
ordinary Tarantula, that of the Calabrias, observed by him in Spain:

   '_Lycosa tarantula_ by preference inhabits open places, dry, arid,
   uncultivated places, exposed to the sun.  She lives generally--at
   least when full-grown--in underground passages, regular burrows, which
   she digs for herself.  These burrows are cylindrical; they are often
   an inch in diameter and run into the ground 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 skilful hunter and an able
   engineer.  It was a question for her not only of constructing a deep
   retreat that could hide her from the pursuit of her foes: she also had
   to set up her observatory whence to watch for her prey and dart out
   upon it.  The Tarantula provides for every contingency: the
   underground passage, in fact, begins by being vertical, but, at four
   or five inches from the surface, it bends at an obtuse angle, forms a
   horizontal turning and then becomes perpendicular once more.  It is at
   the elbow of this tunnel that the Tarantula posts herself as a
   vigilant sentry and does not for a moment lose sight of the door of
   her dwelling; it was there that, at the period when I was hunting her,
   I used to see those eyes gleaming like diamonds, bright as a cat's
   eyes in the dark.

   'The outer orifice of the Tarantula's burrow is usually surmounted by
   a shaft constructed throughout by herself.  It is a genuine work of
   architecture, standing as much as an inch above the ground and
   sometimes two inches in diameter, so that it is wider than the burrow
   itself.  This last circumstance, which seems to have been calculated
   by the industrious Spider, lends itself admirably to the necessary
   extension of the legs at the moment when the prey is to be seized.  The
   shaft is composed mainly of bits of dry wood joined by a little clay
   and so artistically laid, one above the other, that they form the
   scaffolding of a straight column, the inside of which is a hollow
   cylinder.  The solidity of this tubular building, of this outwork, is
   ensured above all by the fact that it is lined, upholstered within,
   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 must be for preventing
   landslip or warping, for maintaining cleanliness and for 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' holes without a
   trace of it, perhaps because it had been accidentally destroyed by the
   weather, or because the Lycosa may not always light upon the proper
   building-materials, or, lastly, because architectural talent is
   possibly declared only in individuals that have reached the final
   stage, the period of perfection of their physical and intellectual
   development.

   'One thing is certain, that I have had numerous opportunities of
   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
   fall of foreign bodies which, swept by the wind, might end by
   obstructing it; lastly, she uses it as a snare by offering the Flies
   and other insects whereon she feeds a projecting point to settle on.
   Who shall tell us 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 first
   time that I lighted on this Spider's burrows and discovered that they
   were inhabited by seeing her come to a point on the first floor of her
   dwelling--the elbow which I have mentioned--I thought that I must
   attack her by main force and pursue her relentlessly in order to
   capture her; I spent whole hours in opening up the trench with a knife
   a foot long by two inches wide, without meeting the Tarantula.  I
   renewed the operation in other burrows, always with the same want of
   success; I really wanted a pickaxe to achieve my object, but I was too
   far from any kind of house.  I was obliged to change my plan of attack
   and I resorted to craft.  Necessity, they say, is the mother 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 the burrow.
   I soon saw that the Lycosa's attention and desires were roused.
   Attracted by the bait, she came with measured steps towards the
   spikelet.  I withdrew it in good time a little outside the hole, so as
   not to leave the animal time for reflexion; and the Spider suddenly,
   with a rush, darted out of her dwelling, of which I hastened to close
   the entrance.  The Tarantula, bewildered by her unaccustomed 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 by hunger,
   she would remain coy and motionless, at a slight distance from the
   threshold, which she did not think it opportune to cross.  Her
   patience outlasted mine.  In that case, I employed the following
   tactics: after making sure of the Lycosa's position and the direction
   of the tunnel, I drove a knife into it on the slant, so as to take the
   animal 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 and
   deserted her lair for the open, or else she stubbornly remained with
   her back to the blade.  I would then give a sudden jerk to the knife,
   which flung both the earth and the Lycosa to a distance, enabling me
   to capture her.  By employing this hunting-method, I sometimes caught
   as many as fifteen Tarantulae within the space of an hour.

   'In a few cases, in which the Tarantula was under no misapprehension
   as 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 push it away with her legs, without troubling to
   retreat to the back of her lair.

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

   '"_Ruricolae nostri quando eas captare volunt, ad illorum latibula
   accedunt, tenuisque avenacae fistulae sonum, apum murmuri non
   absimilem, modulantur.  Quo audito, ferox exit Tarentula ut muscas vel
   alia hujus modi insecta, quorum murmur esse putat, captat; captatur
   tamen ista a rustico insidiatore_." {5}

   'The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight, especially when we are
   filled with the idea that her bite is dangerous, so fierce in
   appearance, is nevertheless quite easy to tame, as I have often found
   by experiment.

   'On the 7th of May 1812, while at Valencia, in Spain, I caught a fair-
   sized male Tarantula, without hurting him, and imprisoned him in 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 habitual
   residence.  I placed the jar on a table in my bedroom, so as to have
   him under frequent observation.  He soon grew accustomed to captivity
   and ended by becoming so familiar that he would come and take from my
   fingers the live Fly which I gave him.  After killing his victim with
   the fangs of his mandibles, he was not satisfied, like most Spiders,
   to suck her head: he chewed her whole body, shoving it piecemeal into
   his mouth with his palpi, after which he threw up the masticated
   teguments 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 and out,
   with his front tarsi.  After that, he resumed his air of motionless
   gravity.  The evening and the night were his time for taking his walks
   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, like
   cats.

   'On the 28th of June, my Tarantula cast his skin.  It was his last
   moult and did not perceptibly alter either the colour of his attire or
   the dimensions of his body.  On the 14th of July, I had to leave
   Valencia; and I stayed away until the 23rd.  During this time, the
   Tarantula fasted; I found him looking quite well on my return.  On the
   20th of August, I again left for a nine days' absence, which my
   prisoner bore without food and without detriment to his health.  On
   the 1st of October, I once more deserted the Tarantula, leaving him
   without provisions.  On the 21st, I was fifty miles from Valencia and,
   as I intended to remain there, I sent a servant to fetch 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 short description
   of a curious fight between those animals.  One day, when I had had a
   successful hunt after these Lycosae, I picked out two full-grown and
   very powerful males and brought them together in a wide jar, in order
   to enjoy the sight of a combat to the death.  After walking round the
   arena several times, to try and avoid each other, they were not slow
   in placing themselves in a warlike attitude, as though at a given
   signal.  I saw them, to my surprise, take their distances and sit up
   solemnly on their hind-legs, so as mutually to present the shield of
   their chests to each other.  After watching them face to face like
   that for two minutes, during which they had doubtless provoked each
   other by glances that escaped my own, I saw them fling themselves upon
   each other at the same time, twisting their legs round each other and
   obstinately struggling to bite each other with the fangs of the
   mandibles.  Whether from fatigue or from convention, the combat was
   suspended; there was a few seconds' truce; and each athlete moved away
   and resumed his threatening posture.  This circumstance reminded me
   that, in the strange fights between cats, there are also suspensions
   of hostilities.  But the contest was soon renewed between my two
   Tarantulae with increased fierceness.  One of them, after holding
   victory in the balance for a while, was at last thrown and received a
   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 whose
habits have been described above by the Wizard of the Landes; but it
possesses an equivalent in the shape of the Black-bellied Tarantula, or
Narbonne Lycosa, half the size of the other, clad in black velvet on the
lower surface, especially under the belly, with brown chevrons on the
abdomen and grey and white rings around the legs.  Her favourite home 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 down the pit
where gleam, like diamonds, the four great eyes, the four telescopes, of
the hermit.  The four others, which are much smaller, are not visible at
that depth.

Would I have greater riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards from my
house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, to-day a dreary
solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits from stone to
stone.  The love of lucre has laid waste the land.  Because wine paid
handsomely, they pulled up the forest to plant the vine.  Then came the
Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished and the once green table-land is now
no more than a desolate stretch where a few tufts of hardy grasses sprout
among the pebbles.  This waste-land is 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 first and
then bent elbow-wise.  The average diameter is an inch.  On the edge of
the hole stands a kerb, formed of straw, bits and scraps of all sorts and
even small pebbles, the size of a hazel-nut.  The whole is kept in place
and cemented with silk.  Often, the Spider confines herself to drawing
together the dry blades of the nearest grass, which she ties down with
the straps from her spinnerets, without removing the blades from the
stems; often, also, she rejects this scaffolding in favour of a masonry
constructed of small stones.  The nature of the kerb is decided by the
nature of the materials within the Lycosa's reach, in the close
neighbourhood of the building-yard.  There is no selection: everything
meets with approval, provided that it be near at hand.

Economy of time, therefore, causes the defensive wall to vary greatly as
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 the same width as the
subterranean channel, of which they are the extension.  There is here no
difference in diameter between the underground manor and its outwork, nor
do we behold, at the opening, the platform which the turret leaves to
give free play to the Italian Tarantula's legs.  The Black-bellied
Tarantula's work takes the form of a well surmounted by its kerb.

When the soil is earthy and homogeneous, the architectural type is free
from obstructions and the Spider's dwelling is a cylindrical tube; but,
when the site is pebbly, the shape is modified according to the
exigencies of the digging.  In the second case, the lair is often a
rough, winding cave, at intervals along whose inner wall stick blocks of
stone avoided in the process of excavation.  Whether regular or
irregular, the house is plastered to a certain depth with a coat of silk,
which prevents earth-slips and facilitates scaling when a prompt exit is
required.

Baglivi, in his unsophisticated Latin, teaches us how to catch the
Tarantula.  I became his _rusticus insidiator_;  I waved a spikelet at
the entrance of the burrow to imitate the humming of a Bee and attract
the attention of the Lycosa, who rushes out, thinking that she is
capturing a prey.  This method did not succeed with me.  The Spider, it
is true, leaves her remote apartments and comes a little way up the
vertical tube to enquire into the sounds at her door; but the wily animal
soon scents a trap; it remains motionless at mid-height and, at the least
alarm, goes down again to the branch gallery, where it is invisible.

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

Other stratagems become necessary.  Here are two which were successful: I
recommend them to future Tarantula-hunters.  I insert into 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-defence and bites the
spikelet.  A slight resistance informs my fingers that the animal has
fallen into the trap and seized the tip of the stalk in its fangs.  I
draw it to me, slowly, carefully; the Spider hauls from 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 difficult moment.  If I continue the gentle
movement, the Spider, feeling herself 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 sudden pull.  Surprised by this foul play, the Tarantula has no
time to release her hold; gripping the spikelet, she is thrown some
inches away from the burrow.  Her capture now becomes an easy matter.
Outside her own house, the Lycosa is timid, as though scared, and hardly
capable of running away.  To push her with a straw into a paper bag is
the affair of a second.

It requires some patience to bring the Tarantula who has bitten into the
insidious spikelet to the entrance of the burrow.  The following method
is quicker: I procure a supply of live Bumble-bees.  I put one into a
little bottle with a mouth just wide enough to cover the opening of the
burrow; and I turn the apparatus thus baited over the said opening.  The
powerful Bee at first flutters and hums about her 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 place in the perpendicular
passage.  For a few moments, the ear perceives a sort of death-song: it
is the humming of the Bumble-bee, protesting against 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, refusing to let go so rich a booty.  Game
and huntress are brought to the orifice.  Sometimes, mistrustful, the
Lycosa goes in again; but we have only to leave the Bumble-bee on the
threshold of the door, or even a few inches away, to see her reappear,
issue from her fortress and daringly recapture her prey.  This is the
moment: the house is closed with the finger, or a pebble and, as Baglivi
says, '_captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore_,' to which I will add,
'_adjuvante Bombo_.' {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 was
interested in a different matter.  Here, thought I, is an ardent
huntress, living solely by her trade.  She does not prepare preserved
foodstuffs 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 and keep it fresh for weeks at a time;
she is a killer, who makes a meal off her capture on the spot.  With her,
there is no methodical vivisection, which destroys movement without
entirely destroying life, but absolute death, as sudden as possible,
which protects the assailant from the counter-attacks of the assailed.

Her game, moreover, is essentially bulky and not always of the most
peaceful character.  This Diana, ambushed in her tower, needs a prey
worthy of her prowess.  The big Grasshopper, with the powerful jaws; the
irascible Wasp; the Bee, the Bumble-bee and other wearers of poisoned
daggers must fall into the ambuscade from time to time.  The duel is
nearly equal in point of weapons.  To the venomous fangs of the Lycosa
the Wasp opposes her venomous stiletto.  Which of the two bandits shall
have the best of it?  The struggle is a 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 ribbons by the armful, making all resistance
impossible.  When the prey is 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 naught to serve
her but her courage and her fangs and is obliged to leap upon the
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 fatal hole
are a sufficient proof.  As soon as that shrill buzzing, which I 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 recent corpse.  The
Bumble-bee's death is instantaneous.  Each time that I take a fresh
victim from the terrible slaughter-house, my surprise is renewed at the
sight of its sudden immobility.

Nevertheless, both animals have very nearly the same strength; for I
choose my Bumble-bees from among the largest (_Bombus hortorum_ and _B.
terrestris_).  Their weapons are almost equal: the Bee's dart can bear
comparison with the Spider's fangs; the sting of the first seems to me as
formidable as the bite of the second.  How comes it that the Tarantula
always has the upper hand and this moreover in a very short conflict,
whence she emerges unscathed?  There must certainly be some cunning
strategy on her part.  Subtle though her poison may be, I cannot believe
that its mere injection, at any point whatever of the victim, is enough
to produce so prompt a catastrophe.  The ill-famed rattlesnake does not
kill so quickly, takes hours to achieve that for which the Tarantula does
not require a second.  We must, therefore, look for an explanation of
this sudden 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 the Bumble-bees.
They enter the burrow; and the murder is committed far from sight.  Nor
does the lens discover any wound upon the corpse, so delicate are the
weapons that produce it.  One would have to see the two adversaries
engage in a direct contest.  I have often tried to place a Tarantula and
a Bumble-bee face to face in the same bottle.  The two animals mutually
flee each other, each being as much upset as the other at its captivity.
I have kept them together for twenty-four hours, without aggressive
display on either side.  Thinking more of their prison than of attacking
each other, they temporize, as though indifferent.  The experiment has
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 the Spider's
mandibles.  A weak prey is a mouthful which the Spider reserves for the
calm of the night.  A prey capable of resistance is not attacked in
captivity.  The prisoner's anxiety cools the hunter's ardour.

The arena of a large bottle enables each athlete to keep out of the
other's way, respected by her adversary, who is respected in her turn.
Let us reduce the lists, diminish the enclosure.  I put Bumble-bee and
Tarantula into a test-tube that has only room for one at the bottom.  A
lively brawl ensues, without serious results.  If the Bumble-bee be
underneath, she lies down on her back and with her legs wards off the
other as much as she can.  I do not see her draw her sting.  The Spider,
meanwhile, embracing the whole circumference of the enclosure with her
long legs, hoists herself a little upon the slippery surface and removes
herself as far as possible from her adversary.  There, motionless, she
awaits events, which are soon disturbed by the fussy Bumble-bee.  Should
the latter occupy the upper position, the Tarantula protects herself by
drawing up her legs, which keep the enemy at a distance.  In short, save
for sharp scuffles when the two champions are in touch, nothing happens
that deserves attention.  There is no duel to the death in the narrow
arena of the test-tube, any more than in the wider lists afforded by the
bottle.  Utterly timid once she is away from home, the Spider obstinately
refuses the battle; nor will the Bumble-bee, giddy though she be, think
of striking the first blow.  I abandon experiments in 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 the Bumble-bee,
who enters the burrow and conceals her death from our eyes, it is
necessary to substitute another adversary, less inclined to penetrate
underground.  There abounds in the garden, at this moment, on the flowers
of the common clary, one of the largest and most powerful Bees that haunt
my district, the Carpenter-bee (_Xylocopa violacea_), clad in black
velvet, with wings of purple gauze.  Her size, which is nearly an inch,
exceeds that of the Bumble-bee.  Her sting is excruciating and produces a
swelling that long continues painful.  I have very exact memories on this
subject, memories that have cost me dear.  Here indeed is an antagonist
worthy of the Tarantula, if I succeed in inducing the Spider to accept
her.  I place a certain number, one by one, in bottles small in capacity,
but having a wide neck capable of surrounding the entrance to the burrow.

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

Fortune at last smiles upon my patience, which has been heavily tried by
all these prudent retreats and particularly by the fierce heat of the dog-
days.  A Spider suddenly rushes from her hole: she has been rendered
warlike, doubtless, by prolonged abstinence.  The tragedy that happens
under the cover of the bottle lasts for but the twinkling 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 nape of the neck.  The assassin has the
knowledge which I suspected: she has made for the essentially vital
centre, she has stung the insect's cervical ganglia with her
poison-fangs.  In short, she has bitten the only point a lesion in which
produces sudden death.  I was delighted with this murderous skill, which
made amends for the blistering which my skin received in the sun.

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

I had seen enough.  The quick insect-killer had taught me her trade as
had the paralyzer {10} before her: she had shown me that she is
thoroughly versed in the art of the butcher of the Pampas. {11}  The
Tarantula is an accomplished _desnucador_.  It remained to me to confirm
the open-air experiment with experiments in the privacy of my study.  I
therefore got together a menagerie of these poisonous Spiders, so as to
judge of the virulence of their venom and its effect according to the
part of the body injured by the fangs.  A dozen bottles and test-tubes
received the prisoners, whom I captured by the methods known to the
reader.  To one inclined to scream at the sight of a Spider, my study,
filled with odious Lycosae, would have presented a very uncanny
appearance.

Though the Tarantula scorns or rather fears to attack an adversary placed
in her presence in a bottle, she scarcely hesitates to bite what is
thrust beneath her fangs.  I take her by the thorax with my forceps and
present to her mouth the animal which I wish stung.  Forthwith, if the
Spider be not already tired by experiments, the fangs are raised and
inserted.  I first tried the effects of the bite upon the Carpenter-bee.
When struck in the neck, the Bee succumbs at once.  It was the lightning
death which I witnessed on the threshold of the burrows.  When struck in
the abdomen and then placed in a large bottle that leaves its movements
free, the insect seems, at first, to have suffered no serious injury.  It
flutters about and buzzes.  But half an hour has not elapsed before death
is imminent.  The insect lies motionless upon its back or side.  At most,
a few movements of the legs, a slight pulsation of the belly, continuing
till the 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.  When stung in
the neck, the powerful Bee dies on the spot; and the Spider has not to
fear the dangers of a desperate struggle.  Stung elsewhere, in the
abdomen, the insect is capable, for nearly half an hour, of making use of
its dart, its mandibles, its legs; and woe to the Lycosa whom the
stiletto reaches.  I have seen some who, stabbed in the mouth while
biting close to the sting, died of the wound within the twenty-four
hours.  That dangerous prey, therefore, requires instantaneous death,
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:
lightning death.  When injured elsewhere, notably in the abdomen, the
subject of the experiment resists for some time.  I have seen a
Grasshopper, bitten in the belly, cling firmly for fifteen hours to the
smooth, upright wall of the glass bell that constituted his prison.  At
last, he dropped off and died.  Where the Bee, that delicate organism,
succumbs in less than half an hour, the Grasshopper, coarse ruminant that
he is, resists for a whole day.  Put aside these differences, caused by
unequal degrees of organic sensitiveness, and we sum up as follows: when
bitten by the Tarantula in the neck, an insect, chosen from among the
largest, dies on the spot; when bitten elsewhere, it perishes also, but
after a lapse of time which varies considerably in the different
entomological orders.

This explains the long hesitation of the Tarantula, so wearisome to the
experimenter when he presents to her, at the entrance to the burrow, a
rich, but dangerous prey.  The majority refuse to fling themselves upon
the Carpenter-bee.  The fact is that a quarry of this kind cannot be
seized recklessly: the huntress who missed her stroke by biting at random
would do so at the risk of her life.  The nape of the neck alone
possesses the desired vulnerability.  The adversary must be nipped there
and no elsewhere.  Not to floor her at once would 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 watches for the favourable moment; she waits
for the big Bee to face her, when the neck is easily grabbed.  If this
condition of success offer, she leaps out and acts; if not, weary of the
violent evolutions of the quarry, she retires indoors.  And that, no
doubt, is why it took me two sittings of four hours apiece to witness
three assassinations.

Formerly, instructed by the paralysing Wasps, I had myself tried to
produce paralysis by injecting a drop of ammonia into the thorax of those
insects, such as Weevils, Buprestes, {13} and Dung-beetles, whose compact
nervous system assists this physiological operation.  I showed myself a
ready pupil to my masters' teaching and used to paralyze a Buprestis or a
Weevil almost as well as 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 tiny drop 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 than wild convulsions.  When attacked by the
acrid fluid, the cervical ganglia cease to do their work; and death
ensues.  Nevertheless, this death is not immediate; the throes last for
some time.  The experiment is not wholly satisfactory as regards
suddenness.  Why?  Because the liquid which I employ, ammonia, cannot be
compared, for deadly efficacy, with the Lycosa's poison, a pretty
formidable poison, 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 spot is surrounded
by a reddish circle, changing to purple.  The bird almost immediately
loses the use of its leg, which drags, with the toes doubled in; it hops
upon the other.  Apart from this, the patient does not seem to trouble
much about his hurt; his appetite is good.  My daughters feed him on
Flies, bread-crumb, apricot-pulp.  He is sure to get well, he will
recover his strength; the poor victim of the curiosity of science will be
restored to liberty.  This is the wish, the intention of us all.  Twelve
hours later, the hope of a cure increases; the invalid takes nourishment
readily; he clamours for 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
stoicism and his rumpled feathers, the Sparrow hunches into a ball, now
motionless, now twitching.  My girls take him in the hollow of their
hands and 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 my home-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 result achieved seemed to me
too dearly bought.  I am not made of the stuff of those who, without
turning a hair, rip up live Dogs to find out nothing in particular.

Nevertheless, I had the courage to start afresh, this time on a Mole
caught ravaging a bed of lettuces.  There was a danger lest my captive,
with his famished stomach, should leave things in doubt, if we 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.  In that case, I
ran a risk of ascribing to the poison what might well be the result of
starvation.  I must therefore begin by finding out if 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 get out and fed on a varied diet of
insects--Beetles, Grasshoppers, especially Cicadae {15}--which it
crunched up with an excellent appetite.  Twenty-four hours of this
regimen convinced me that the Mole was making the best of the bill of
fare and taking kindly to his captivity.

I make the Tarantula bite him at the tip of the snout.  When replaced in
his cage, the Mole keeps on scratching his nose with his broad paws.  The
thing seems to burn, to itch.  Henceforth, less and less of the provision
of Cicadae is consumed; on the evening of the following day, it is
refused altogether.  About thirty-six hours after being bitten, the Mole
dies during the night and certainly not from inanition, for there are
still half a dozen live Cicadae in the receptacle, as well as a few
Beetles.

The bite of the Black-bellied Tarantula is therefore dangerous to other
animals than insects: it is fatal to the Sparrow, it is fatal to the
Mole.  Up to what point are we to generalize?  I do not know, because my
enquiries extended no further.  Nevertheless, judging from the little
that I saw, it appears to me that the bite of this 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-killers in the plural, for the Tarantula must share her deadly art
with a host of other Spiders, especially with those who hunt without
nets.  These insect-killers, who live on their prey, strike the game dead
instantaneously by stinging the nerve-centres of the neck; the
paralyzers, on the other hand, who wish to keep the food fresh for their
larvae, destroy the power of movement by stinging the game in the other
nerve-centres.  Both of them attack the nervous chain, but they select
the point according to 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--sometimes one alone, sometimes three, sometimes all or
nearly all, according to the special organization of the victim--receive
the dagger-thrust.

Even the paralyzers, at least some of them, are acquainted with the
immense vital importance of the nerve-centres of the neck.  We have seen
the Hairy Ammophila munching the caterpillar's brain, the Languedocian
Sphex munching the brain of the Ephippigera, with the object of inducing
a passing torpor.  But they simply squeeze the brain and do even this
with a wise discretion; they are careful not to drive their sting into
this fundamental centre of life; not one of them ever thinks of doing so,
for the result would be a corpse which the larva would despise.  The
Spider, on the other hand, inserts her double dirk there and there alone;
any elsewhere it would inflict a wound likely to increase resistance
through irritation.  She wants a venison for consumption without delay
and brutally thrusts her fangs 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 acquired
habit, then I rack my brain in vain to understand how that habit can have
been acquired.  Shroud these facts in theoretic mists as much as you
will, you shall never succeed in veiling the glaring evidence which 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 nothing to do
and retires to winter quarters, the observer profits by the mildness of
the sunny nooks and grubs in the sand, lifts the stones, searches the
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 such treasure-trove!
I wish them all the joys which it has brought me and which it will
continue to bring me, despite the vexations of life, which grow ever more
bitter as the years follow their swift downward course.

Should the seekers rummage among the wild grasses in the osier-beds and
copses, I wish them the delight of finding the wonderful object that, at
this moment, lies before my eyes.  It is the work of a Spider, 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 instinct whether the animal have eight
legs instead of six, or pulmonary sacs instead of air-tubes.  Besides,
the Araneida belong to the group of segmented animals, organized in
sections placed end to end, a structure to 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 ear and of
being understood by all.  This is out of date.  Nowadays, they use the
euphonious term 'Arthropoda.'  And to think that there are men who
question the existence of progress!  Infidels!  Say, 'articulate,' first;
then roll out, 'Arthropoda;' and you shall see whether zoological science
is not progressing!

In bearing and colouring, _Epeira fasciata_ is the handsomest of the
Spiders of the South.  On her fat belly, a mighty silk-warehouse nearly
as large as a hazel-nut, are alternate yellow, black and silver sashes,
to which she owes her epithet of Banded.  Around that portly abdomen, 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 for her
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 across
some brooklet, from bank to bank among the rushes.  She also stretches
them, but not assiduously, in the thickets of evergreen oak, on the
slopes 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 fastened to the
neighbouring branches by a number of moorings.  The structure is that
adopted by the other weaving Spiders.  Straight threads radiate at equal
intervals from a central point.  Over this framework runs a continuous
spiral thread, forming chords, or cross-bars, from the centre to the
circumference.  It is magnificently large and magnificently symmetrical.

In the lower part of the web, starting from the centre, a wide opaque
ribbon descends zigzag-wise across the radii.  This is the Epeira's trade-
mark, the flourish of an artist initialling his creation.  '_Fecit_ So-
and-so,' she seems to say, when giving the last throw of the shuttle to
her handiwork.

That the Spider feels satisfied when, after passing and repassing from
spoke to spoke, she finishes her spiral, is beyond a doubt: the work
achieved ensures her food for a few days to come.  But, in this
particular case, the vanity of the spinstress has naught to say to the
matter: the strong silk zigzag is added to impart greater firmness to the
web.

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

The Locust in particular, the fiery Locust, who releases the spring of
his long shanks at random, often falls into the trap.  One imagines that
his strength ought to frighten the Spider; the kick of his spurred levers
should enable him to make a hole, then and there, in the web and to get
away.  But not at all.  If he does not free himself at 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 than the
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 component threads are
kept almost separate.  The two hind-legs fling this shroud 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 wild beast,
appeared in the arena with a rope-net folded over his left shoulder.  The
animal made its spring.  The man, with a sudden movement of his right
arm, cast the net after the manner of the fishermen; he covered the beast
and tangled it in the meshes.  A thrust of the trident gave the quietus
to the vanquished foe.

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

When all movement ceases under the snowy winding-sheet, the Spider goes
up to her bound prisoner.  She has a better weapon than the _bestiarius_'
trident: she has her poison-fangs.  She gnaws 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, the clean-bled
remains are flung out of the net and the Spider returns to her ambush in
the centre of the web.

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

The Epeira, therefore, being a drinker of blood, moderates the virulence
of her sting, even with victims of appalling size, so sure is she of her
retiarian art.  The long-legged Tryxalis, {17} the corpulent Grey Locust,
the largest of our Grasshoppers are accepted without hesitation and
sucked dry as soon as numbed.  Those giants, capable of making a hole in
the net and passing through it in their impetuous onrush, can be but
rarely caught.  I myself place them on the web.  The Spider does the
rest.  Lavishing her silky spray, she swathes them and then sucks the
body at her ease.  With an increased expenditure of the spinnerets, the
very biggest game is mastered as successfully as the everyday prey.

I have seen even better than that.  This time, my subject is the Silky
Epeira (_Epeira sericea_, OLIV.), with a broad, festooned, silvery
abdomen.  Like that of the other, her web is large, upright and 'signed'
with a zigzag ribbon.  I place upon it a Praying Mantis, {18} a
well-developed specimen, quite capable of changing roles, should
circumstances permit, and herself making a meal off her assailant.  It is
a question no longer of capturing a peaceful Locust, but a fierce and
powerful ogre, who would rip open the Epeira's paunch with one blow of
her harpoons.

Will the Spider dare?  Not immediately.  Motionless in the centre of her
net, she consults her strength before attacking the formidable quarry;
she waits until the struggling prey has its claws more thickly entangled.
At last, she approaches.  The Mantis curls her belly; lifts her wings
like vertical sails; opens her saw-toothed arm-pieces; in short, adopts
the spectral attitude which she employs when delivering battle.

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

Meanwhile, the swathed one gives sudden jerks, which make the Spider fall
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 and climbs 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 terrible quarry,
she has spent the whole reserves of her spinning-mill, enough to weave
many good-sized webs.  With this heap of shackles, further precautions
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 blood of her
prey.  The meal is long protracted, so rich is the dish.  For ten hours,
I watch the insatiable glutton, who changes her point of attack as each
wound sucked dries up.  Night comes and robs me of the finish of the
unbridled debauch.  Next morning, the drained Mantis lies upon the
ground.  The Ants are eagerly devouring the remains.

The eminent talents of the Epeirae are displayed to even better purpose
in 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 scalloped rim, the corners of which
are lengthened by means of moorings that fasten the 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-shaped patterns,
in fanciful meridian waves, adorns the upper portion of the exterior.  The
part played by this fabric is self-evident: it is a 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 its contents
from the winter cold.  Let us cut the wrapper with our scissors.
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 of the
eiderdown hangs a cylindrical pocket, round at the bottom, cut square at
the top and closed with a padded lid.  It is made of extremely fine
satin; it contains the Epeira's eggs, pretty little orange-coloured
beads, 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 in what
manner the spinstress sets about it.  The observation is not an easy one,
for the Banded Epeira is a night-worker.  She needs nocturnal quiet in
order not to go astray amid the complicated rules that guide her
industry.  Now and again, at very early hours in the morning, I have
happened to catch her working, which enables me to sum up the progress of
the operations.

My subjects are busy in their bell-shaped cages, at about the middle of
August.  A scaffolding is first run up, at the top of the dome; it
consists of a few stretched threads.  The wire trellis represents the
twigs and the blades of grass which the Spider, if at liberty, would have
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 her task.
The machinery is so well put together that the whole thing goes
automatically.

The tip of the abdomen sways, a little to the right, a little to the
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 place it in
position on that which is already done.  Thus is formed a satin
receptacle the rim of which is gradually raised until it becomes a bag
about a centimetre deep. {19}  The texture is of the daintiest.  Guy-ropes
bind it to the nearest threads 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 the top.
The capacity of the receptacle has been so nicely calculated that there
is room for all the eggs, without leaving any space unoccupied.  When the
Spider has finished and retires, I catch a momentary glimpse of the heap
of orange-coloured eggs; but the work of the spinnerets is at once
resumed.

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

Around the satin capsule, which contains the eggs, is the eiderdown
destined to keep out the cold.  The youngsters will bide for some time in
this soft shelter, to strengthen their joints and prepare for the final
exodus.  It does not take long to make.  The spinning-mill suddenly
alters the raw material: it was turning out white silk; it now furnishes
reddish-brown silk, finer than the other and issuing in clouds which the
hind-legs, those dexterous carders, beat into a sort of froth.  The egg-
pocket disappears, drowned in this exquisite wadding.

The balloon-shape is already outlined; the top of the work tapers to a
neck.  The Spider, moving up and down, tacking first to one side and then
to the other, from the very first spray marks out the graceful 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 moment to weave
the outer wrapper.  Because of the thickness of the stuff and the density
of its texture, this operation is the longest of the series.

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

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

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

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

The Epeira ends her web with a dead-white, angular flourish; she ends her
nest with brown mouldings, which run down, irregularly, from the marginal
junction to the bulging middle.  For this purpose, she makes use, for the
third time, of a different silk; she now produces silk of a dark hue,
varying from russet to black.  The spinnerets distribute the material
with a wide longitudinal swing, from pole to pole; and the hind-legs
apply it in capricious ribbons.  When this is done, the work is finished.
The Spider moves away with slow strides, without giving a glance at the
bag.  The rest does not interest her: time and the sun will see to it.

She felt her hour at hand and came down from her web.  Near by, 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 wherewithal to bind the prey.
Besides, the fine appetite of former days has gone.  Withered and
languid, she drags out her existence for a few 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 Banded Epeira in
the manufacture of big hunting-nets, but she is less gifted in the art of
nest-building.  She gives her nest the inelegant form of an obtuse cone.
The opening of this pocket is very wide and is scalloped into lobes by
which the edifice is slung.  It is closed with a large lid, half satin,
half swan's-down.  The rest is a stout white fabric, frequently covered
with irregular brown streaks.

The difference between the work of the two Epeirae does not extend beyond
the wrapper, which is an obtuse cone in the one case and a balloon in the
other.  The same internal arrangements prevail behind this frontage:
first, a flossy quilt; next, a little keg in which the eggs are packed.
Though the two Spiders build the outer wall according to special
architectural rules, they both employ the same means as a protection
against the cold.

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

What a wonderful silk-factory it is!  With a very simple and
never-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 Spider direct an establishment of this kind?
How does she obtain, at will, skeins of diverse hues and grades?  How
does she turn them out, first in this fashion, then in that?  I see the
results, but I 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 those unseasonable
hours.  It is simply due to the conditions prevailing in my menagerie.

In their natural state, the Epeirae settle separately, at long distances
from one another.  Each has her own hunting-grounds, where there is no
reason to fear the competition that would result from the close proximity
of the nets.  In my cages, on the other hand, there is cohabitation.  In
order to save space, I lodge two or three Epeirae in the same cage.  My
easy-going captives live together in peace.  There is no strife between
them, no encroaching on the neighbour's property.  Each of them weaves
herself a rudimentary web, as far from the rest as possible, and here,
rapt in contemplation, as though indifferent to what the others are
doing, she awaits the hop of the Locust.

Nevertheless, these close quarters have their drawbacks when laying-time
arrives.  The cords by which the different establishments are hung
interlace and criss-cross in a confused network.  When one of them
shakes, all the others are more or less affected.  This is enough to
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 visit the cage
in the morning, hanging from the trellis-work and completed.  It is
perfect, as regards structure; it is decorated with the regulation black
meridian curves.  There is nothing missing, nothing except the essential
thing, the eggs, for which the spinstress has gone to such expense in the
matter of silks.  Where are the eggs?  They are not in the bag, which I
open and find empty.  They are lying on the ground below, on the sand in
the pan, utterly unprotected.

Disturbed at the moment of discharging them, the mother has missed the
mouth of the little bag and dropped them on the floor.  Perhaps even, in
her excitement, she came down from above and, compelled by the exigencies
of the ovaries, laid her eggs on the first support that offered.  No
matter: if her Spider brain contains the least gleam of sense, she must
be aware of the disaster and is therefore bound at once 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 absurd
perseverance displayed by certain Bees, whose egg and provisions I used
to remove, {20} is here repeated without the slightest interference from
me.  My victims used scrupulously to seal up their empty cells.  In the
same way, the Epeira puts the eiderdown quilting and the taffeta wrapper
round a capsule that contains nothing.

Another, distracted from her work by some startling vibration, leaves her
nest at the moment when the layer of red-brown wadding is being
completed.  She flees to the dome, at a few inches above her unfinished
work, and spends upon a shapeless mattress, of no use whatever, all the
silk with which she would have woven the outer wrapper if nothing had
come to disturb her.

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

Let us compare the work of the Banded Epeira with that of the Penduline
Titmouse, 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 the peaceful
backwaters, at some distance from the too-impetuous current.  It hangs
from the drooping end of the branch of a poplar, an old willow or 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 opening
at the side, just sufficient to allow of the mother's passage.  In shape,
it resembles the body of an alembic, a chemist's retort with a short
lateral neck, or, better still, the foot of a stocking, with the edges
brought together, but for a little round hole left at one side.  The
outward appearances increase the likeness: one can almost see the traces
of a knitting-needle working with coarse stitches.  That is why, struck
by this shape, the Provencal peasant, in his expressive language, calls
the Penduline _lou Debassaire_, the Stocking-knitter.

The early-ripening seedlets of the widows and poplars furnish the
materials for the work.  There breaks from them, in May, a sort of vernal
snow, a fine down, which the eddies of the air heap in the crevices of
the ground.  It is a cotton similar to that of our manufactures, but of
very short staple.  It comes from an inexhaustible warehouse: the tree is
bountiful; and the wind from the osier-beds gathers the tiny flocks as
they pour from the seeds.  They are easy to pick up.

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

The cotton of the poplar cannot, of itself, supply a hanging pocket
capable of supporting the weight of the brood and resisting the buffeting
of the wind.  Rammed, entangled and packed together, the flocks, similar
to those which ordinary wadding would give if chopped up very fine, would
produce only an agglomeration devoid of cohesion and liable to 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 action of
moisture and the air, furnish the Penduline with a coarse tow, not unlike
that of hemp.  With these ligaments, purged of every woody particle and
tested for flexibility and tenacity, he winds a number of loops round the
end of the branch which he has selected as a support for his structure.

It is not a very accurate piece of work.  The loops run clumsily and
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, which enables the
fastenings for the net to be multiplied.

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

This warp, this inner framework, is obviously not constructed in its
entirety from the start; it goes on gradually, as the bird stuffs the
part above it with cotton.  The wadding, picked up bit by bit from 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 soft felt 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.  In order to pass
through it, the Penduline, small though he be, has to force 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 that of
the Banded Epeira.  As regards shape, this stocking-foot cannot be
mentioned in the same breath with the Spider's elegant and faultlessly-
rounded balloon.  The fabric of mixed cotton and tow is a rustic frieze
beside the spinstress' satin; the suspension-straps are clumsy cables
compared with her delicate silk fastenings.  Where shall we find in the
Penduline's mattress aught to vie with the Epeira's eiderdown, that
teazled russet gossamer?  The Spider is superior to the bird in every
way, in so far as concerns her work.

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




CHAPTER III: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA


The Epeira, who displays such astonishing industry to give her eggs a
dwelling-house of incomparable perfection, becomes, after that, careless
of her family.  For what reason?  She lacks the time.  She has to die
when the first cold comes, whereas the eggs are destined to pass the
winter in their downy snuggery.  The desertion of the nest is inevitable,
owing to the very force of things.  But, if the 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 walks sideways,
after the manner of the Crab.  I have spoken elsewhere {22} of her
encounters with the Domestic Bee, whom she jugulates by biting her in the
neck.

Skilful in the prompt despatch of her prey, the little Crab Spider is no
less well-versed in the nesting art.  I find her settled on a privet in
the enclosure.  Here, in the heart of a cluster of 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 flowerets
which have fallen from the cluster.  This is the watcher's belvedere, her
conning-tower.  An opening, which is always free, gives access to this
post.

Here the Spider remains on constant duty.  She has thinned greatly since
she laid her eggs, has almost lost her corporation.  At the least alarm,
she sallies forth, waves a threatening limb at the passing stranger 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 flowers and
silk?  Night and day, she shields the precious eggs with her poor body
spread out flat.  Eating is neglected.  No more lying 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-apparatus and, 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 me from saying that she 'broods.'

For two or three weeks, more and more wrinkled by abstinence, the little
Spider never relaxes her position.  Then comes the hatching.  The
youngsters stretch a few threads in swing-like curves from twig to 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 mother is still
there, but this time lifeless.  The devoted creature has known the
delight of seeing her family born; she has assisted the weaklings through
the trap-door; and, when her duty was done, very gently she died.  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.), whose prowess
has been described in an earlier chapter.  The reader will remember her
burrow, her pit of a bottle-neck's width, dug in the pebbly soil beloved
by the lavender and the thyme.  The mouth is 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 any kind.

From her inch-high turret, the Lycosa lies in wait for the passing
Locust.  She gives a bound, pursues the prey and suddenly deprives it of
motion with a bite in the neck.  The game is consumed on the spot, or
else in the lair; the insect's tough hide arouses no disgust.  The sturdy
huntress is not a drinker of blood, like the 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 of her
well?  Insert a thin straw into the burrow and move it about.  Uneasy as
to what is happening above, the recluse hastens to climb up and stops, in
a threatening attitude, at some distance from the orifice.  You see her
eight eyes gleaming like diamonds in the dark; you see her powerful
poison-fangs yawning, ready to bite.  He who is not accustomed to the
sight of this horror, rising from under the ground, cannot suppress a
shiver.  B-r-r-r-r!  Let us leave the beast alone.

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

The obese Spider is gravely devouring something in the midst of a circle
of onlookers.  And what?  The remains of a Lycosa a little smaller than
herself, the remains of her male.  It is the end of the tragedy that
concludes the nuptials.  The sweetheart is eating her lover.  I allow the
matrimonial rites to be fulfilled in all their horror; and, when the last
morsel of the unhappy wretch has been scrunched up, I incarcerate the
terrible matron under a cage standing 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 about equal to the palm of one's hand.  It is coarse and
shapeless, but firmly fixed.  This is the floor on which the Spider means
to operate.

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

Then, without the Spider's moving her position, the oscillation is
resumed in the opposite direction.  By means of this alternate motion,
interspersed with numerous contacts, a segment of the sheet is obtained,
of a very accurate texture.  When this is done, the Spider moves a little
along a circular line and the loom works in the same manner on another
segment.

The silk disk, a sort of hardly concave paten, now no longer receives
aught from the spinnerets in its centre; the marginal belt alone
increases in 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 heap together in the
shape of a globe which projects largely outside the cavity.  The
spinnerets are once more set going.  With short movements, as the tip of
the abdomen rises and falls to weave the round mat, they cover up the
exposed hemisphere.  The result is a pill set in the middle of a circular
carpet.

The legs, hitherto idle, are now working.  They take up and break off one
by one the threads that keep the round mat stretched on the coarse
supporting network.  At the same time, the fangs grip this sheet, lift it
by degrees, tear it from its base and fold it over upon the globe of
eggs.  It is a laborious operation.  The whole 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-like efforts of the legs, which clear away, the
Lycosa extricates the bag of 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.  Its size is
that of an average cherry.  An observant eye will notice, running
horizontally around the middle, a fold which a needle is able to raise
without breaking it.  This hem, generally undistinguishable from the rest
of the surface, is none other than the edge of the circular mat, drawn
over the lower hemisphere.  The other hemisphere, through which the
youngsters will go out, is less well fortified: its only wrapper is 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 guard her
eggs against the inclemencies of the winter, for the hatching will take
place long before the cold weather comes.  Similarly, the Thomisus, with
her early brood, takes good care not to incur useless expenditure: she
gives her eggs, for their protection, a simple purse of satin.

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

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

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

Why these rambles?  There are two reasons: first the pairing and then the
making of the pill.  There is a lack of space in the burrow, which
provides only room enough for the Spider engaged in long contemplation.
Now the preparations for the egg-bag require an extensive flooring, a
supporting framework about the size of one's hand, as my caged prisoner
has shown us.  The Lycosa has not so much space at her disposal, in her
well; hence the necessity for coming out and working at her wallet in the
open air, doubtless in the quiet hours 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 into his lady's
cave, into a lair whence flight would be impossible?  It is very
doubtful.  Prudence demands that matters should take place outside.  Here
at least there is some chance of beating a hasty retreat which will
enable the rash swain to escape the attacks of his horrible bride.

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

After this cannibal orgy, does the Lycosa go back home?  Perhaps not, 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, think they
will have a look at the country before retiring for good and all.  It is
these whom we sometimes meet wandering aimlessly and dragging their bag
behind them.  Sooner or later, however, the vagrants return home; and the
month of August is not over before a straw rustled in any burrow will
bring the mother up, with her wallet slung behind her.  I am able to
procure as many as I want and, with them, to indulge in certain
experiments of the highest interest.

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

By dint of pulling and shaking the pill with the forceps, I take it from
the Lycosa, who protests furiously.  I fling her in exchange a pill taken
from another Lycosa.  It is at once seized in the fangs, embraced by the
legs and hung on to the spinneret.  Her own or another's: it is all one
to the Spider, who walks away proudly with the alien wallet.  This was to
be expected, in view of the similarity of the pills exchanged.

A test of another kind, with a second subject, renders the mistake more
striking.  I substitute, in the place of the lawful bag which I have
removed, the work of the Silky Epeira.  The colour and softness of 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 an
elliptical conoid studded with angular projections along the edge of the
base.  The Spider takes no account of this dissimilarity.  She promptly
glues the queer bag to her spinnerets and is as pleased as though she
were in possession of her real pill.  My experimental villainies have no
other consequences beyond an ephemeral carting.  When hatching-time
arrives, early in the case of the Lycosa, late in that of the Epeira, the
gulled Spider abandons the strange bag and pays it 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, without
the least demur.  One would have thought that she would recognize her
mistake with those eight eyes of hers, which gleam like precious stones.
The silly creature pays no attention.  Lovingly she embraces the cork
ball, fondles it with her palpi, fastens it to her spinnerets and
thenceforth drags it after her as though she were dragging her 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 floor of the
jar.  Will the Spider be able to know the one that belongs to her?  The
fool is incapable of doing so.  She makes a wild rush and seizes
haphazard at one time her property, at another my sham product.  Whatever
is first touched becomes a good capture and is forthwith hung up.

If I increase the number of cork balls, if I put in four or five of them,
with the real pill among them, it is seldom that the Lycosa recovers her
own property.  Attempts at enquiry, attempts at selection there 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 the soft
contact of the cork?  I replace the cork balls by pellets of 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 been removed.

Can the illusion be due to the colouring, which is light in the cork and
not unlike the tint of the silk globe when soiled with a little earth,
while it is white in the paper and the cotton, when it is identical with
that of the original pill?  I give the Lycosa, in exchange for her work,
a pellet of silk thread, chosen of a fine red, the brightest of all
colours.  The uncommon pill is as readily accepted and as jealously
guarded as the others.

We will leave the wallet-bearer alone; we know all that we want to know
about her poverty of intellect.  Let us wait for the hatching, which
takes place in the first fortnight in September.  As they come out of the
pill, the youngsters, to the number of about a couple of 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 the hatching is over, the
wallet is loosened from the spinnerets and cast aside as a worthless rag.

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

If, in the middle of winter, in January or February, I happen, out in the
fields, to ransack the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and frost
have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastion at the entrance,
I always find her at home, still full of vigour, still carrying her
family.  This vehicular upbringing lasts five or six months at least,
without interruption.  The celebrated American carrier, 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 find them, at the tardy period
of their emancipation, just as they were when they 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 I have
captured, for her benefit, in the sunnier nooks.  In order to keep
herself in condition, as when she is dug up in the course of my winter
excavations, she must therefore sometimes break her fast and come out in
search of prey, without, of course, discarding her live mantilla.

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

I sweep the whole family from the back of one of my boarders with a hair-
pencil.  Not a sign of emotion, not an attempt at search on the part of
the denuded one.  After trotting about a little on 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 the dorsal group resumes
its original form.  Not one of the lot is missing.  The Lycosa's sons
know their trade as acrobats to perfection: the mother need not trouble
her head about their fall.

With a sweep of the pencil, I make the family of one Spider fall around
another laden with her own family.  The dislodged ones nimbly scramble up
the legs and climb on the back of their new mother, who kindly allows
them to behave as though they belonged to her.  There is no room on the
abdomen, the regulation resting-place, which is already occupied by the
real sons.  The invaders thereupon encamp on the front part, beset the
thorax and change the carrier into a horrible pin-cushion that no longer
bears the least resemblance to a Spider form.  Meanwhile, the sufferer
raises no sort of protest against this access of family.  She placidly
accepts them all and walks them all about.

The youngsters, on their side, are unable to distinguish between what is
permitted and forbidden.  Remarkable acrobats that they are, they climb
on the first Spider that comes along, even when of a different species,
provided that she be of a fair size.  I place them in the presence of a
big Epeira marked with a white cross on a pale-orange ground (_Epeira
pallida_, OLIV.).  The little ones, as soon as they are dislodged from
the back of the Lycosa their mother, clamber up the stranger without
hesitation.

Intolerant of these familiarities, the Spider shakes the leg encroached
upon and flings the intruders to a distance.  The assault is doggedly
resumed, to such good purpose that a dozen succeed in hoisting themselves
to the top.  The Epeira, who is not accustomed to the tickling of such a
load, turns over on her back and rolls on the ground in the manner of a
donkey when his hide is itching.  Some are lamed, some are even crushed.
This does not deter the others, who repeat the escalade as soon as the
Epeira is on her legs again.  Then come more somersaults, more rollings
on the back, until the giddy swarm are all 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
established amicable relations with a Spider.  At a certain hour of the
day, a ray of sunlight would glint through the window of the gloomy
workshop and light up the little compositor's case.  Then his
eight-legged neighbour would come down from her web and take her share of
the sunshine on the edge of the case.  The boy did not interfere with
her; he welcomed the trusting visitor as a friend and as a pleasant
diversion from 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 solitude
is 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 greater devotion
than the young typesetter's.  I admit her to the intimacy of my study, I
make room for her among my books, I set her in 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 a means of escape from the petty
worries of life, pin-pricks whereof I have my share like other men, a
very large share, indeed; I propose to submit to the Spider a host of
questions whereto, at times, she condescends to reply.

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

I will therefore once more take up the story of the Spider's instinct, a
story of which the preceding chapters have given but a very rough idea.
Since I wrote those earlier essays, my field of observation has been
greatly extended.  My notes have been enriched by new and most remarkable
facts.  It is right that I should employ them for the purpose of a more
detailed biography.

The exigencies of order and clearness expose me, it is true, to
occasional repetitions.  This is inevitable when one has to marshal in an
harmonious whole a thousand items culled from day to day, often
unexpectedly, and bearing no relation one to the other.  The observer is
not master of his time; opportunity leads him and by unsuspected ways.  A
certain question suggested by an earlier fact finds no reply until many
years after.  Its scope, moreover, is amplified and completed with views
collected on the road.  In a work, therefore, of this fragmentary
character, repetitions, necessary for the due co-ordination of 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 Narbonne Lycosa, or
Black-bellied Tarantula, chooses her domicile in the waste, pebbly lands
beloved of the thyme.  Her dwelling, a fortress rather than a villa, is a
burrow about nine inches deep and as wide as the neck of a claret-bottle.
The direction is perpendicular, in so far as obstacles, frequent in a
soil of this kind, permit.  A bit of gravel can be extracted and hoisted
outside; but a flint is an immovable boulder which the Spider avoids by
giving a bend to her gallery.  If more such are met with, the residence
becomes a winding cave, with stone 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 her rugged
manor with the same speed as from a vertical shaft.  Perhaps she even
finds the windings and turnings an advantage, when she has to 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 lounge or
resting-place where the Spider meditates at length and is content to lead
a life of quiet when her belly is full.

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

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

When she reaches maturity and is once settled, the Lycosa becomes
eminently domesticated.  I have been living in close communion with her
for the last three years.  I have installed her in large earthen pans on
the window-sills of my study and I have her daily under my 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 does not go
far afield to gather the wherewithal to build her parapet and that she
makes shift with what she finds upon her threshold.  In these conditions,
the building-stones are soon exhausted and the masonry ceases for lack of
materials.

The wish came over me to see what dimensions the circular edifice would
assume, if the Spider were given an unlimited supply.  With captives 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 continue these relations
with the big Spider of the waste-lands, let me describe how my subjects
are housed.

A good-sized earthenware pan, some nine inches deep, is filled with a
red, clayey earth, rich in pebbles, similar, in short, to that of the
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, which leaves a yawning,
perpendicular shaft.  I thus obtain the abode which shall replace that of
the fields.

To find the hermit to inhabit it is merely the matter of a walk in the
neighbourhood.  When removed from her own dwelling, which is turned topsy-
turvy by my trowel, and placed in possession of the den produced by my
art, the Lycosa at once disappears into that den.  She does not come out
again, seeks nothing better elsewhere.  A large 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 my
diligence.  The prisoner is satisfied with her new abode and manifests no
regret for her natural burrow.  There is no attempt at flight on her
part.  Let me not omit to add that each pan must receive not more than
one inhabitant.  The Lycosa is very intolerant.  To her, a neighbour is
fair game, to be eaten without scruple when one has might on one's side.
Time was when, unaware of this fierce intolerance, which is more savage
still at breeding-time, I saw hideous orgies perpetrated in my
overstocked cages.  I shall have occasion to describe those tragedies
later.

Let us meanwhile consider the isolated Lycosae.  They do not touch 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 lounge or 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 to those
which they use when left to their own resources.  These consist, first,
for the foundations, of little smooth stones, some of which are as large
as an almond.  With this road-metal are mingled short strips of raphia,
or palm-fibre, flexible ribbons, easily bent.  These stand for the
Spider's usual basket-work, consisting of slender stalks and dry blades
of grass.  Lastly, by way of an unprecedented treasure, 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, with the
magnificent lenses of their eyes, are able to distinguish colours and
prefer one colour to another, I mix up bits of wool of different hues:
there are red, green, white and yellow pieces.  If the Spider have any
preference, she can choose where she pleases.

The Lycosa always works at night, a regrettable circumstance, which does
not allow me to follow the worker's methods.  I see the result; and that
is all.  Were I to visit the building-yard by the light of a lantern, I
should be no wiser.  The animal, which is very shy, would at once dive
into her lair; and I should have lost my sleep for nothing.  Furthermore,
she is not a very diligent labourer; she likes to take her time.  Two or
three bits of wool or 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 picked up in their immediate neighbourhood, my Lycosae have built
themselves donjon-keeps the like of which their race has not yet known.
Around the orifice, on a slightly sloping bank, small, flat, smooth
stones have been laid to form a broken, flagged pavement.  The larger
stones, which are Cyclopean blocks compared with the size of the animal
that has shifted them, are employed as abundantly as the others.

On this rockwork stands the donjon.  It is an interlacing of raphia and
bits of wool, picked up at random, without distinction of shade.  Red and
white, green and yellow are mixed without any attempt at 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 that the whole
resembles a coarse fabric.  Without being absolutely faultless, for there
are always awkward pieces on the outside, which the 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 my industry,
contrived with a view to some experimental mischief; and his surprise is
great when I confess who the real author is.  No one would ever believe
the Spider capable of constructing such a monument.

It goes without saying that, in a state of liberty, on our barren waste-
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 search of
materials and she makes use of the limited resources which she finds
around her.  Bits of earth, small chips of stone, a few twigs, a few
withered grasses: that is all, or nearly all.  Wherefore the work is
generally quite modest and reduced to a parapet that hardly attracts
attention.

My captives teach us that, when materials are plentiful, especially
textile materials that remove all fears of landslip, the Lycosa delights
in tall turrets.  She understands the art of donjon-building and puts 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 entrance to her
dwelling with a silken trellis-work, wherein she embeds different
matters, often the remnants of victims which she has devoured.  The
ancient Gael nailed the heads of his vanquished enemies to the door of
his hut.  In the same way, the fierce Spider sticks the skulls of her
prey into the lid of her cave.  These lumps look very well on the ogre's
roof; but we must be careful not to mistake them for warlike trophies.
The animal knows nothing of our barbarous bravado.  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 gravel and no better.

And so, with silk and all sorts of tiny materials, the Lycosa builds a
lidded cap to the entrance of her home.  I am not well acquainted with
the reasons that prompt her to barricade herself indoors, particularly as
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 investigations
into the dispersal of the family.

At the time of the tropical August heat, I see my Lycosae, now this
batch, now that, building, at the entrance to the burrow, a convex
ceiling, which is difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil.  Can
it be to protect themselves from the too-vivid light?  This is doubtful;
for, a few days later, though the power of the sun remain the 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 once more
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 raining
hard, the Spider bursts her ceiling and leaves her house open to the
skies.

Perhaps the lid is only put on for serious domestic events, notably for
the laying.  I do, in fact, perceive young Lycosae who shut themselves in
before they have attained the dignity of motherhood and who reappear,
some time later, with the bag containing the eggs hung to their stern.
The inference that they close the door with the object of securing
greater quiet while spinning the maternal cocoon would 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 who weave their cocoon and cram
it with eggs in the open air, before they even own a residence.  In
short, I do not succeed in fathoming the 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, the silk woof
gives it the requisite pliancy to cleave when pushed by the anchorite and
to rip open without falling into ruins.  Swept back to the circumference
of the mouth and increased by the wreckage of further ceilings, it
becomes a parapet, which the Lycosa raises by degrees in her long moments
of leisure.  The bastion which surmounts the burrow, therefore, takes its
origin from the temporary lid.  The turret derives 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 permanently
fixed, the Lycosa, once she has set up house, prefers to lie in ambush
and wait for the quarry.  Every day, when the heat is greatest, I see my
captives come up slowly from under ground and lean upon the battlements
of their woolly castle-keep.  They are then really magnificent in their
stately gravity.  With their swelling belly contained within the
aperture, their head outside, their glassy eyes staring, their legs
gathered for a spring, for hours and hours they wait, motionless, bathing
voluptuously in the sun.

Should a tit-bit to her liking happen to pass, forthwith the watcher
darts from her tall tower, swift as an arrow from the bow.  With a dagger-
thrust in the neck, she stabs the jugular of the Locust, Dragon-fly or
other prey whereof I am the purveyor; and she as quickly scales the
donjon and retires with her capture.  The performance is a wonderful
exhibition of skill and speed.

Very seldom is a quarry missed, provided that it pass at a convenient
distance, 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, she allows it to roam at
will.  She never strikes except when sure of her stroke.  She achieves
this by means of her tower.  Hiding behind the wall, she sees the
stranger advancing, keeps her eyes on him and suddenly pounces when he
comes within reach.  These abrupt tactics make the thing a certainty.
Though he were winged and swift of flight, the unwary one who approaches
the ambush is lost.

This presumes, it is true, an exemplary patience on the Lycosa's part;
for the burrow has naught that can serve to entice victims.  At best, the
ledge provided by the turret may, at rare intervals, tempt some weary
wayfarer to use it as a resting-place.  But, if the quarry 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 are they always able to
regulate their leaps.  Some day or other, chance is 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 when we 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-day and to
remain empty afterwards for goodness knows how long.  I have sometimes
neglected my catering-duties for weeks at a time; and my boarders have
been none the worse for it.  After a more or less protracted fast, they
do not pine away, but are smitten with a wolf-like hunger.  All these
ravenous eaters are alike: they guzzle to excess to-day, in anticipation
of to-morrow's dearth.

In her youth, before she has a burrow, the Lycosa earns her living in
another manner.  Clad in grey like her elders, but without the
black-velvet apron which she receives on attaining the marriageable age,
she roams among the scrubby grass.  This is true hunting.  Should a
suitable quarry heave in sight, the Spider pursues it, drives it from its
shelters, follows it hot-foot.  The fugitive gains the 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 seize the
Flies which I provide for them.  In vain does the Fly take refuge a
couple of inches up, on some blade of grass.  With a sudden spring into
the air, the Spider pounces on the prey.  No Cat is quicker 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 trailed along,
those gymnastic performances become impracticable.  The Lycosa then digs
herself a settled abode, a hunting-box, and sits in her 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 is how the Field
Cricket sets to work: as long as the days are fine and the nights not too
cold, the future chorister of spring rambles over the 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 inclement season draws nigh.

The Lycosa shares the Cricket's views: like him, she finds a thousand
pleasures in the vagabond life.  With September comes the nuptial badge,
the black-velvet bib.  The Spiders meet at night, by the soft moonlight:
they romp together, they eat the beloved shortly after the wedding; by
day, they scour the country, they track the game on the short-pile,
grassy carpet, they take their fill of the joys of the sun.  That is much
better than solitary meditation at the bottom of a well.  And so it is
not rare to see young mothers dragging their bag of eggs, or even already
carrying their family, and as yet without a home.

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

Seeing no digging-tools, such as the excavation of the dwelling seemed to
me to require, I wondered whether the Lycosa might not avail herself of
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 enlarge it
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 tools such as
these would not do: they are too long and too difficult to wield in a
confined space.  What is required is the miner's short-handled pick,
wherewith to drive hard, to insert, to lever and to extract; what is
required is the sharp point that enters the earth and crumbles it into
fragments.  There remain the Lycosa's fangs, delicate weapons which we at
first hesitate to associate with such work, so illogical does 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 preserve their edge
and sharpness.  In the same way, the Lycosa protects her poisoned daggers
by folding them within the case of two powerful columns, which come plumb
on the surface and contain the muscles that work them.

Well, this surgical outfit, intended for stabbing the jugular artery of
the prey, suddenly becomes a pick-axe and does rough navvy's work.  To
witness the underground digging is impossible; but we can, at least, with
the exercise of a little patience, see the rubbish carted away.  If I
watch my captives, without tiring, at a very early hour--for the work
takes place mostly at night and at long intervals--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 earth is 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 distance to 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, those lethal
weapons, are not afraid to bite into clay and gravel.  They knead the
excavated rubbish into pellets, take up the mass of earth and carry it
outside.  The rest follows naturally; it is the fangs that dig, delve and
extract.  How finely-tempered they must be, not to be blunted by this
well-sinker's work and to do duty presently in the surgical operation of
stabbing the neck!

I have said that the repairs and extensions of the burrow are made at
long intervals.  From time to time, the circular parapet receives
additions and becomes a little higher; less frequently still, the
dwelling is enlarged and deepened.  As a rule, the mansion remains as it
was for a whole season.  Towards the end of winter, in March more than at
any other period, the Lycosa seems to wish to give herself a little more
space.  This is the moment to subject her to certain tests.

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

That the bird, the nest-builder, should neglect its art when it has no
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 exposed to a
thousand mishaps when away from home?  The protection of a roof would be
of great use to him; and the giddy-pate does not give it a thought,
though he is very strong and more capable than ever of digging with his
powerful jaws.

What reason can we allege for this neglect?  None, unless it be that the
season of strenuous burrowing is past.  The instincts have a calendar of
their own.  At the given hour, suddenly they awaken; as suddenly,
afterwards, they fall asleep.  The ingenious become 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, under
wire, 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 moulded a burrow
roughly representing the one from which I took her, the Spider enters it
forthwith and seems pleased with her new residence.  The product of my
art is accepted as her lawful property and undergoes hardly any
alterations.  In course of time, a bastion is erected around the orifice;
the top of the gallery is cemented with silk; and that is all.  In this
establishment of my building, the animal's behaviour remains what it
would be under natural conditions.

But place the Lycosa on the surface of the ground, without first shaping
a burrow.  What will the homeless Spider do?  Dig herself a dwelling, one
would think.  She has the strength to do so; she is in the prime of life.
Besides, the soil is similar to that whence I ousted her and suits the
operation perfectly.  We therefore expect to see the Spider settled
before long in a shaft of 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 hardly vouchsafes a
glance at the game which I serve up.  The Crickets pass within her reach
in vain; most often she scorns them.  She slowly wastes away with fasting
and boredom.  At length, she dies.

Take up your miner's trade again, poor fool!  Make yourself a home, since
you know how to, and life will be sweet to you for many a 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; because the
days of patient digging are past and your poor brain is unable to work
back.  To do a second time what has been done already is beyond your wit.
For all your meditative air, you cannot solve the problem of how to
reconstruct that which is vanished and gone.

Let us now see what we can do with younger Lycosae, who are at the
burrowing-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 diameter to my
little finger.  Rubbish quite fresh-spread around the pit bears witness
to the recent date of the excavations.

Relegated to their wire cages, these young Lycosae behave differently
according as the soil placed at their disposal is or is not already
provided 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 lure them on.
When in possession of this rudimentary lair, the Spider does not hesitate
to pursue the work which I have interrupted in the fields.  At night, she
digs with a will.  I can see this by the heap of rubbish flung aside.  She
at last obtains a house to suit her, a house surmounted by the usual
turret.

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

The first pursue the season's task.  They were digging when 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 deepening their real vestibule.
They do not begin their labours over again; they continue them.

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

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

What the Mason-bees and the others taught us erewhile the Lycosa now
confirms in her manner.  Incapable of taking fresh pains to build herself
a second dwelling, when the first is done for, she will go on the tramp,
she will break into a neighbour's house, she will 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 mechanical
routine and subtle brain-power!  Does it contain gleams that contrive,
wishes that pursue a definite object?  Following in the wake of so 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 hanging to
her spinnerets.  The reader will remember the experiments described in
the third chapter of this volume, particularly those with the cork ball
and the thread pellet which the Spider so foolishly accepts in exchange
for the real pill.  Well, this exceedingly dull-witted mother, satisfied
with aught that knocks against her heels, is about to make us wonder at
her devotion.

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

Towards the end of summer, all the householders, old or young, whether in
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 anchorites come
up from the bottom with their bag and station themselves at the opening.
Long siestas on the threshold in the sun are the order of the day
throughout the fine season; but, at the present time, the position
adopted is a different one.  Formerly, the Lycosa came out into the sun
for her own sake.  Leaning on the parapet, she had 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 front is in
the pit, the rear outside.  With her hind-legs she holds the white pill
bulging with germs lifted above the entrance; gently she turns and
returns it, so as to present every side to the life-giving rays.  And
this goes on for half the day, so long as the temperature is high; and it
is repeated daily, with exquisite patience, during three or four weeks.
To hatch its eggs, the bird covers them with the quilt 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 them the sun as an incubator.

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

The whole family emerges from the bag straightway.  Then and there, the
youngsters climb to the mother's back.  As for the 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 little ones cover the whole back
of the mother, who, for seven or eight months to come, will carry her
family night and day.  Nowhere can we hope to see a more edifying
domestic picture than that of the Lycosa clothed in her young.

From time to time, I meet a little band of gipsies passing along the high-
road on their way to some neighbouring fair.  The new-born babe mewls on
the mother's breast, in a hammock formed out of a kerchief.  The last-
weaned is carried pick-a-back; a third toddles clinging to its mother's
skirts; others follow closely, the biggest in the rear, ferreting in the
blackberry-laden hedgerows.  It is a magnificent spectacle of happy-go-
lucky fruitfulness.  They go their way, penniless and rejoicing.  The sun
is hot and the earth is fertile.

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

The little ones are very good; none moves, none seeks a quarrel with his
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 fastened to one another?  'Tis
impossible to tell at the first glance.

The equilibrium of this living blanket is not so firm but that falls
often occur, especially when the mother climbs from indoors and comes to
the threshold to let the little ones take the sun.  The least brush
against the gallery unseats a part of the family.  The mishap is not
serious.  The Hen, fidgeting about her Chicks, looks for the strays,
calls them, gathers them together.  The Lycosa knows not these maternal
alarms.  Impassively, she leaves those who drop off to manage their own
difficulty, which they do with wonderful quickness.  Commend me to those
youngsters for getting up without whining, dusting themselves and
resuming their seat in the saddle!  The unhorsed ones promptly find a leg
of the mother, the usual climbing-pole; they swarm up it as fast as they
can and recover their places on the bearer's back.  The living bark of
animals is reconstructed in the twinkling of an eye.

To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extravagant.  The Lycosa's
affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that of the plant, which is
unacquainted with any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest
and most delicate care upon its seeds.  The animal, in many cases, knows
no other sense of motherhood.  What cares the Lycosa for her brood!  She
accepts another's as readily as her own; she is satisfied so long as her
back is burdened with 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 her offspring.  With
a zeal which even the additional labour laid upon her does not easily
weary, she removes the mildew from the alien dung-balls, which far exceed
the regular nests in number; she gently scrapes and polishes and repairs
them; she listens to them attentively and enquires by ear into each
nursling's progress.  Her real collection could 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 and sweep the
living burden from one of my Spiders, making it fall close to another
covered with her little ones.  The evicted youngsters scamper about, find
the new mother's legs outspread, nimbly clamber up these and mount on the
back of the obliging creature, who quietly lets them have their way.

They slip in among the others, or, when the layer is too thick, push to
the front and pass from the abdomen to the thorax and even to the head,
though leaving the region of the eyes uncovered.  It does not do to blind
the bearer: the common safety demands that.  They know this and respect
the lenses of the eyes, however populous the assembly be.  The whole
animal is now covered with a swarming carpet of young, all except the
legs, which must preserve their freedom of action, and the under part of
the body, where contact with the ground is to be feared.

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

I perceive that I have reached the limits not of the bearer's good-will,
but of equilibrium.  The Spider would adopt an indefinite further number
of foundlings, if the dimensions of her back afforded them a firm hold.
Let us be content with this.  Let us restore each family to its mother,
drawing at random from the lot.  There must necessarily be interchanges,
but that is of no importance: real children and adopted children are the
same thing in the Lycosa's eyes.

One would like to know if, apart from my artifices, in circumstances
where I do not interfere, the good-natured dry-nurse sometimes burdens
herself with a supplementary family; it would also be interesting to
learn 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 size of the
common pan permits.  The distance is nine inches or more.  It is not
enough.  Proximity soon kindles fierce jealousies between those
intolerant creatures, who are obliged to live far apart, so as to secure
adequate hunting-grounds.

One morning, I catch the two harridans fighting out their quarrel on the
floor.  The loser is laid flat upon her back; the victress, belly to
belly with her adversary, clutches her with her legs and prevents her
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 exchange threats,
the stronger of the two, the one on top, closes her lethal engine and
grinds the head of the prostrate foe.  Then she calmly devours 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 the conqueror's
back and quietly take their places among the lawful family.  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 emancipation comes,
she will carry them without drawing any distinction between them and her
own young.  Henceforth, the two families, united in so tragic a fashion,
will form but one.  We see how greatly out of place it would be to speak,
in this connection, of mother-love and its fond manifestations.

Does the Lycosa at least feed the younglings who, for seven months, swarm
upon her back?  Does she invite them to the banquet when she has secured
a prize?  I thought so at first; and, anxious to assist at the family
repast, I devoted special attention to watching the 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 her family in a wire-gauze cage, with a layer
of earth wherein the captive will 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 and join in
the meal.  Nor does the mother extend an invitation to them to come and
recruit themselves, nor put any broken victuals aside for them.  She
feeds and the others look on, or rather remain indifferent to what is
happening.  Their perfect quiet during the Lycosa's feast 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 notion of exudations supplied by
the bearer's body, in which case the young 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 their mouths to
the skin that should be a sort of teat to them.  On the other hand, the
Lycosa, far from being exhausted and shrivelling, keeps perfectly well
and plump.  She has the same pot-belly when she finishes rearing her
young as when she began.  She has not lost weight: far from it; on the
contrary, she has put on flesh: she has gained the wherewithal to beget a
new family next summer, one as numerous as 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 rectifying the
beastie's expenditure of vital force, especially when we consider that
those reserves, themselves so close to nothing, must be economized in
view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of which a
plentiful use will be made presently.  There must be other powers at play
in the tiny animal's machinery.

Total abstinence from food could be understood, if it were accompanied by
inertia: immobility is not life.  But the young Lycosae, although usually
quiet on their mother's back, are at all times ready for exercise and for
agile swarming.  When they fall from the maternal perambulator, they
briskly pick themselves up, briskly scramble up a leg and make their way
to the top.  It is a splendidly nimble and spirited performance.  Besides,
once seated, they have to keep a firm balance in the mass; they have to
stretch and stiffen their little limbs in order to hang on to their
neighbours.  As a matter of fact, there is no absolute rest for them.  Now
physiology teaches us that not a fibre works without some expenditure of
energy.  The animal, which can be likened, in no small measure, to our
industrial machines, demands, on the one hand, the renovation of its
organism, which wears out with movement, and, on the other, the
maintenance of the 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 made good from time to time.  The founder and the smith
repair it, supply it, so to speak, with 'plastic food,' the food that
becomes embodied with the whole and forms part of it.  But, though it
have just come from the engine-shop, it is still inert.  To acquire the
power of movement, it must receive from the stoker a supply of 'energy-
producing food;' in other words, he lights a few shovelfuls of coal in
its inside.  This heat will produce mechanical work.

Even so with the beast.  As nothing is made from nothing, the egg
supplies first the materials of the new-born animal; then the plastic
food, the smith of living creatures, increases the body, up to a certain
limit, and renews it as it wears away.  The stoker works at the same
time, without stopping.  Fuel, the source of energy, makes but a short
stay in the system, where it is consumed and furnishes heat, whence
movement is derived.  Life is a fire-box.  Warmed by its 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 period of
their emancipation.  I find them at the age of seven months the same as
when I saw them at their birth.  The egg supplied the materials necessary
for their tiny frames; and, as the loss of waste substance is, for the
moment, excessively small, or even _nil_, additional plastic food is not
needed so long as the beastie does not grow.  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 animal takes
absolutely no nourishment?

An idea suggests itself.  We say to ourselves that, without being life, a
machine is something more than matter, for man has added a little of his
mind to it.  Now the iron beast, consuming its ration of coal, is really
browsing the ancient foliage of arborescent ferns in which solar energy
has accumulated.

Beasts of flesh and blood act no otherwise.  Whether they mutually devour
one another or levy tribute on the plant, they invariably quicken
themselves with the stimulant of the sun's heat, a heat stored in grass,
fruit, seed and those which feed on such.  The sun, the soul of the
universe, is the supreme dispenser of energy.

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

Chemical science, that bold revolutionary, promises to provide us with
synthetic food-stuffs.  The laboratory and the factory will take the
place of the farm.  Why should not physical science step in as well?  It
would leave the preparation of plastic food to the chemist's retorts; it
would reserve for itself that of energy-producing food, which, reduced to
its exact terms, ceases to be matter.  With the aid of some ingenious
apparatus, it would pump into us our daily ration of solar energy, to be
later expended in movement, whereby the machine would be kept going
without the often painful assistance of the stomach and its adjuncts.
What a delightful world, where one would lunch off a ray of sunshine!

Is it a dream, or the anticipation of a remote reality?  The problem 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 strength
in moving.  To wind up the mechanism of their muscles, they recruit
themselves direct with heat and light.  During the time when she was
dragging the bag of eggs behind her, the mother, at the best moments of
the day, came and held up her pill to the sun.  With her two hind-legs,
she lifted it out of the ground, into the full light; slowly she turned
it and returned it, so that every side might receive its share of the
vivifying rays.  Well, this bath of life, which awakened the germs, is
now prolonged to keep the tender babes active.

Daily, if the sky be clear, the Lycosa, carrying her young, comes up from
the burrow, leans on the kerb and spends long hours basking in the sun.
Here, on their mother's back, the youngsters stretch their limbs
delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, take in reserves of motor
power, absorb energy.

They are motionless; but, if I only blow upon them, they stampede as
nimbly as though a hurricane were passing.  Hurriedly, they disperse;
hurriedly, they reassemble: a proof that, without material nourishment,
the little animal machine is always at full pressure, ready to work.  When
the shade comes, mother and sons go down again, surfeited with solar
emanations.  The feast of energy at the Sun Tavern is finished for the
day.  It is repeated in the same way daily, 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 youngsters
begins, 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 as they
please; as though indifferent to what is happening, she exhibits neither
encouragement nor regret.  Whoso will goes; whoso will remains behind.

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

I receive a hint from the upright ring that finishes the top of the cage.
The youngsters hurry to it.  It represents the porch of 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 endless comings and goings.  The
tiny legs open out from time to time and straddle as though to reach the
most distant points.  I begin to realize that they are acrobats aiming at
loftier heights than those of 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 topmost
twigs and thence sends out threads that attach themselves to every
surrounding object.  These form so many suspension-bridges; and my
beasties nimbly run along them, incessantly passing to and fro.  One
would say that they wished to climb higher still.  I will endeavour to
satisfy their desires.

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

Then, suddenly, teased by the air-currents, the delicate mooring breaks
and flies through space.  Behold the emigrants off and away, clinging to
their thread.  If the wind be favourable, they can land at great
distances.  Their departure is thus continued for a week or two, in bands
more or less numerous, according to the temperature and the brightness of
the day.  If the sky be overcast, none dreams of leaving.  The travellers
need the kisses of the sun, which give energy 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 seems
to distress her.  She retains her usual colour and plumpness, which is a
sign that the maternal exertions have not been too much for her.

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

To-day, cheered by the fine weather and able to move freely, she hurries
up from her lair each time I set a tit-bit to her liking buzzing at the
entrance to her burrow; she comes and takes from my fingers the savoury
Locust, the portly Anoxia; {26} and this performance is repeated daily,
whenever I have the leisure to devote to it.  After a frugal winter, the
time has come for plentiful 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 boarders are
entering in full vigour upon their fourth year.  In the winter, in the
fields, I used to find large mothers, carting their young, and others 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 and continue as strong as
ever.  Every outward appearance tells us that, after becoming
great-grandmothers, they still keep themselves fit for propagating their
species.

The facts correspond with these anticipations.  When September returns,
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 hatched for some weeks
past, the mothers come daily to the threshold of the burrow and hold out
their wallets for incubation by the sun.  Their perseverance is not
rewarded: nothing issues from the satin purse; nothing stirs within.  Why?
Because, in the prison of my cages, the eggs have had no father.  Tired
of waiting and at last recognizing the barrenness of their produce, they
push the bag of eggs outside the burrow and trouble about it no more.  At
the return of spring, by which time the family, if developed according to
rule, would have been emancipated, they die.  The mighty Spider of the
waste-lands, therefore, attains to an even more patriarchal age than her
neighbour the 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 afterwards to
settle in the permanent abode, a pit, they start by being enthusiastic
acrobats.  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 have not, it
seems, exhausted the limit of their climbing-instinct even with a nine-
foot pole, suitably furnished with branches to facilitate the escalade.
Those who have eagerly reached the very top wave their legs, fumble in
space as though for yet higher stalks.  It behoves us to begin again and
under better conditions.

Although the Narbonne Lycosa, with her temporary yearning for the
heights, is more interesting than other Spiders, by reason of the fact
that her usual habitation is underground, she is not so striking at
swarming-time, because the youngsters, instead of all migrating at once,
leave the mother at different periods and in small batches.  The sight
will be a finer one with the common Garden or Cross Spider, the Diadem
Epeira (_Epeira diadema_, LIN.), decorated with three white crosses 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 natal wallet early one
spring and never sees the following spring.  This wallet, which contains
the eggs, has none of the ingenious structure which we admired in the
Banded and in the Silky Epeira.  No longer do we see a graceful balloon-
shape nor yet a paraboloid with a starry base; no longer a tough,
waterproof satin stuff; no longer a swan's-down resembling a fleecy,
russet cloud; no longer an inner keg in which the eggs are packed.  The
art of stout fabrics and of walls within walls is unknown here.

The work of the Cross Spider is a pill of white silk, wrought into a
yielding felt, through which the new-born Spiders will easily work their
way, without the aid of the mother, long since dead, and without having
to rely upon its bursting at the given hour.  It is about the 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 my earthenware
pans, the Cross Spider, on the support supplied by a few threads
stretched between the nearest objects, begins by making a shallow saucer
of sufficient thickness to dispense with subsequent corrections.  The
process is easily guessed.  The tip of the abdomen goes up and down, down
and up with an even beat, while the worker shifts her place a little.
Each time, the spinnerets add a bit of thread to the carpet already made.

When the requisite thickness is obtained, the mother empties her ovaries,
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 same way as the
saucer.  The two halves of the work are so well joined that the whole
constitutes an unbroken sphere.

The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira, those experts in the manufacture
of rainproof textures, lay their eggs high up, on brushwood and bramble,
without shelter of any kind.  The thick material of the wallets is enough
to protect the eggs from the inclemencies of the winter, especially from
damp.  The Diadem Epeira, or Cross Spider, needs a cranny for hers, which
is contained in a non-waterproof felt.  In a heap of stones, well exposed
to the sun, she will choose a large slab to serve as a roof.  She lodges
her pill underneath it, in the company of 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 that the
site selected hardly satisfies proper hygienic needs.  The Epeira seems
to realize this fact.  By way of an additional protection, even under a
stone, she never fails to make a thatched roof for her eggs.  She builds
them a covering with bits of fine, dry grass, joined together with a
little silk.  The abode of the eggs becomes a straw wigwam.

Good luck procures me two Cross Spiders' nests, on the edge of 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 near at hand.

I prepare two lengths of bamboo, standing about fifteen feet high and
clustered with little twigs from top to bottom.  I plant one of them
straight up in the tuft, beside the first nest.  I clear the surrounding
ground, because the bushy vegetation might easily, thanks to threads
carried by the wind, divert the emigrants from the road which I have laid
out for them.  The other bamboo I set up in the middle of 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 the bottom of the tall,
ragged distaff.

The events expected are not long in coming.  In the first fortnight in
May, a little earlier in one case, a little later in the other, the two
families, each presented with a bamboo climbing-pole, leave their
respective wallets.  There is nothing remarkable about the mode of
egress.  The precincts to be crossed consist of a very slack net-work,
through which the outcomers wriggle: weak little orange-yellow beasties,
with a triangular black patch upon their sterns.  One morning is long
enough for the whole family to make its appearance.

By degrees, the emancipated youngsters climb the nearest twigs, clamber
to 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.  Rich in 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 stirring it with
a straw.  All wake up at once.  The cluster softly dilates and spreads,
as though set in motion by some centrifugal force; it becomes a
transparent orb wherein thousands and thousands of tiny legs quiver and
shake, while threads are extended along the way to be followed.  The
whole work resolves itself into a delicate veil which swallows up the
scattered family.  We then see an exquisite nebula against whose
opalescent tapestry the tiny animals gleam like twinkling orange stars.

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

The assembly into a ball-shaped mass is also the rule in calm, bright
weather, after the morning's exertions.  In the afternoon, the climbers
collect at a higher point, where they weave a wide, conical tent, with
the end of a shoot for its top, and, gathered into a compact group, spend
the night there.  Next day, when the heat returns, the ascent is resumed
in long files, following the shrouds which a few pioneers have rigged and
which those who come after elaborate with their own work.

Collected nightly into a globular troop and sheltered under a fresh tent,
for three or four days, each morning, before the sun grows too hot, my
little emigrants thus raise themselves, stage by stage, on both bamboos,
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 young Spiders
have at their disposal the bushes, the brushwood, providing supports on
every side for the threads wafted hither and thither by the eddying air-
currents.  With these rope-bridges flung across space, the dispersal
presents no difficulties.  Each emigrant leaves at his own good time and
travels as suits him best.

My devices have changed these conditions somewhat.  My two bristling
poles stand at a distance from the surrounding shrubs, especially the one
which I planted in the middle of the yard.  Bridges are out of 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 come down again,
are impelled to seek in a higher position what they have failed to find
in a lower.  The top of my two bamboos probably fails to represent the
limit of what my keen climbers are capable of achieving.

We shall see, in a moment, the object of this climbing-propensity, which
is a sufficiently remarkable instinct in the Garden Spiders, who have as
their domain the low-growing brushwood wherein their nets are spread; it
becomes a still more remarkable instinct in the Lycosa, who, except at
the moment when she leaves her mother's back, never quits the ground and
yet, in the early hours of her life, shows herself as ardent a wooer of
high places as the young Garden Spiders.

Let us consider the Lycosa in particular.  In her, at the moment of the
exodus, a sudden instinct arises, to disappear, as promptly and for ever,
a few hours later.  This is the climbing-instinct, which is 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 cases there 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 maternal abode
and to travel far afield by the easiest and swiftest methods, suddenly
becoming an enthusiastic climber.  Impetuously she scales the wire
trellis of the cage where she was born; hurriedly she clambers to the top
of the tall mast which I have prepared for her.  In the 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 wide space
beneath her, she sends a thread floating.  It is caught by the 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-instinct conies 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
unoccupied and fill the expanses that realize favourable conditions.

Amid the wayside rubbish grows one of the gourd family, _Ecbalium
elaterium_, commonly called the squirting cucumber, whose fruit--a rough
and extremely bitter little cucumber--is the size of a date.  When ripe,
the fleshy core resolves into a liquid in which float the seeds.
Compressed by the elastic rind of the fruit, this liquid bears upon the
base of the footstalk, which is gradually forced out, yields like a
stopper, breaks off and leaves an orifice through which a stream of seeds
and fluid pulp is suddenly ejected.  If, with a novice hand, under a
scorching sun, you shake the plant laden with yellow fruit, you are bound
to be somewhat startled when you hear a noise among the leaves and
receive the cucumber's grapeshot in your 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 _Impatiens_ given to the balsam alludes
to this sudden dehiscence of the capsules, which cannot endure contact
without bursting.

In the damp and shady places of the woods there exists a plant of the
same family which, for similar reasons, bears the even more expressive
name of _Impatiens noli-me-tangere_, or touch-me-not.

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

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

Next to the tuft, the wing is the most satisfactory contrivance for
dissemination by wind.  Thanks to their membranous edge, which gives them
the appearance of thin scales, the seeds of the yellow wall-flower reach
high cornices of buildings, clefts of inaccessible rocks, crannies in old
walls, and sprout in the remnant of mould bequeathed by the mosses that
were there before them.

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

Like the plant, the insect also sometimes possesses travelling-apparatus,
means of dissemination that allow large families to disperse quickly over
the country, so that each member may have his place in the sun without
injuring his neighbour; and these apparatus, these methods vie in
ingenuity with the elm's samara, the dandelion-plume and the catapult of
the squirting cucumber.

Let us consider, in particular, the Epeirae, those magnificent Spiders
who, to catch their prey, stretch, between one bush and the next, great
vertical sheets of meshes, resembling those of the fowler.  The most
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 tiny pear.
Its neck ends in a concave mouthpiece closed with a lid, also of satin.
Brown ribbons, in fanciful meridian waves, adorn the 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 resembling driven
smoke.  Nowhere does mother-love prepare a softer bed.

In the middle of this downy mass hangs a fine, silk, thimble-shaped
purse, closed with a movable lid.  This contains the eggs, of a pretty
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 competition
among neighbours.  How will they set to work to achieve this distant
exodus, 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, some three feet
high, still stands erect, though withered.  On the green leaves, shaped
like a sword-blade, swarm two newly-hatched families.  The wee beasties
are a dull yellow, with a triangular black patch upon their 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 groups
falls into a great state of flutter.  Nimble acrobats that they are, the
little Spiders scramble up, one after the other, and reach the top of the
stem.  Here, marches and countermarches, tumult and confusion reign, for
there is a slight breeze which throws the troop into disorder.  I see no
connected manoeuvres.  From the top of the stalk they set out at every
moment, one by one; they dart off suddenly; they fly away, so to speak.
It is as though they had the wings of a Gnat.

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

I gather the family in a large box, which I close at once, and instal it
in the animals' laboratory, on a small table, two steps from the open
window.  Apprised by what I have just seen of their propensity to resort
to the heights, I give my subjects a bundle of twigs, eighteen inches
tall, as a climbing-pole.  The whole band hurriedly clambers up and
reaches the top.  In a few moments there is not one lacking in the group
on high.  The future will tell us the reason of this assemblage on the
projecting tips of the twigs.

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

Here hasten the humble little creatures, running indefatigably to and
fro.  When the sun shines upon them, they become gleaming specks and form
upon the milky background of the veil a sort of constellation, a reflex
of those remote points in the sky where the telescope shows us endless
galaxies of stars.  The immeasurably small and the immeasurably large 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 never cease
shifting their position on the web.  Many let themselves drop, hanging by
a length of thread, which the faller's weight draws from the spinnerets.
Then quickly they climb up again by the same thread, which they wind
gradually into a skein and lengthen by successive falls.  Others confine
themselves to running about the 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 move about and
haul, either by falling or by walking, even as the rope-maker steps
backwards when working his hemp.  The activity now displayed on 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 and the open
window.  They are running in mid-air.  But on what?  If the light fall
favourably, I manage to see, at moments, behind the tiny animal, a thread
resembling a ray of light, which appears for an instant, gleams and
disappears.  Behind, therefore, there is a mooring, only just
perceptible, if you look very carefully; but, in front, 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 direction
of the eye: I can distinguish no support for the little creature to walk
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 thread and
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 intervening
space.  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 the window.
That is quite enough: the tiny animal at once ceases to go forward and
falls.  The invisible foot-plank is broken.  My son, young Paul, who is
helping me, is astounded at this wave of the magic wand, for not even he,
with his fresh, young eyes, is able to see a support ahead for the
Spiderling to move along.

In the rear, on the other hand, a thread is visible.  The difference is
easily explained.  Every Spider, as she goes, at the same time spins a
safety-cord which will guard the rope-walker against the risk of an
always possible fall.  In the rear, therefore, the thread is of double
thickness and can be seen, whereas, in front, it is still single 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, supplied with 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 bowl of a pipe
whirled up in the air.

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

But to carry the end of the floating thread elsewhither a draught is
needed.  At this moment, the draught exists between the door of my study
and the window, both of which are open.  It is so slight that 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 without through the door; warm air
escapes from the room through the window.  This is the drought that
carries the threads with it and enables the Spiders to embark upon their
journey.

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

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 this spot, which is
warmer than the rest, a column of lighter, ascending air is generated.  If
this column catch the threads, my Spiders ought 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 departures through 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 the top of the
brushwood placed at the emigrants' disposal and the edge of the table.
Five or six hundred wee beasties swarm all over this work-yard.

While this little world is busily fussing, making its arrangements for
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-dish is lit at
the foot of the table.  My hands cannot feel the heat of 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, shall unwind 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, serve as my guides.
Released above the chafing-dish, on the level of the table, they float
slowly upwards and, for the most part, reach the ceiling.  The emigrants'
lines should rise in the same way and even better.

The thing is done: with the aid of nothing that is visible to the three
of us looking on, a Spider makes her ascent.  She ambles with her eight
legs through the air; she mounts, gently swaying.  The others, in ever-
increasing numbers, follow, sometimes by different roads, sometimes by
the same road.  Any one who did not possess the 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 certain height,
cease to go up and even lose ground, although moving their legs forward
with all the nimbleness of which they are capable.  The more 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 only at
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 the time comes when a
balance is struck between the ascensional force of the thread and the
weight carried.  Then the beastie remains stationary, although continuing
to climb.

Presently, the weight becomes too much for the shorter and shorter float;
and the Spider slips down, in spite of her persistent, forward striving.
She is at last brought back to the branch by the falling threads.  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 in
length.  And all this, the rope-maker and her rope, was contained in the
egg, a particle of no size at all.  To what a degree of fineness can the
silky matter be wrought wherewith the young Spider is provided!  Our
manufacturers are able to turn out platinum-wire that can only be seen
when it is made red-hot.  With much simpler means, the Spiderling draws
from her wire-mill threads so delicate that, even the brilliant light of
the sun does not always enable us to discern them.

We must not let all the climbers be stranded on the ceiling, an
inhospitable region where most of them will doubtless perish, being
unable to produce a second thread before they have had a meal.  I open
the window.  A current of lukewarm air, coming from the chafing-dish,
escapes through the top.  Dandelion-plumes, taking that direction, tell
me so.  The wafting threads cannot fail to be carried by this flow of air
and to 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 thickened with an
added strand.  The result of this operation is marvellous.  Hanging to
the flying-rope, which is borne on the wind outside, the Spider passes
through the window, suddenly flies off and disappears.  An easy way of
travelling, if the conveyance possessed a rudder that allowed the
passenger to land where he pleases!  But the little things are at the
mercy of the winds: where will they alight?  Hundreds, thousands of yards
away, perhaps.  Let us wish them a prosperous journey.

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

The Epeira with the three white crosses, the Spider who has supplied us
with these first data concerning the process of dissemination, is endowed
with a moderate maternal industry.  As a receptacle for the eggs, she
weaves a mere pill of silk.  Her work is modest indeed beside the Banded
Epeira's balloons.  I looked to these to supply me with fuller documents.
I had laid up a store by rearing some mothers during the autumn.  So that
nothing of importance might escape me, I divided my stock of balloons,
most of which were woven before my eyes, into two sections.  One half
remained in my study, under a wire-gauze cover, with, small bunches of
brushwood as supports; the other half were experiencing the vicissitudes
of open-air life on the rosemaries in the enclosure.

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

The hatching takes place as March approaches.  When this time comes, let
us open the Banded Epeira's nest with the scissors.  We shall find that
some of the youngsters have already left the central chamber and
scattered over the surrounding eiderdown, while the rest of the laying
still consists of a compact mass of orange eggs.  The appearance of the
younglings is not simultaneous; it takes place with 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 the other 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 left alone, the little
ones remain motionless in the soft, russet swan's-down; if disturbed,
they shuffle lazily where they are, or even walk about in a hesitating
and unsteady fashion.  One can see that they have to ripen before
venturing outside.

Maturity is achieved in the exquisite floss that surrounds the natal
chamber and fills out the balloon.  This is the waiting-room in which the
body hardens.  All dive into it as and when they emerge from the central
keg.  They will not leave it until four months later, when the midsummer
heats have come.

Their number is considerable.  A patient and careful census gives me
nearly six hundred.  And all this comes out of a purse no larger than a
pea.  By what miracle is there room for such a family?  How do those
thousands of legs manage to grow without straining themselves?

The egg-bag, as we learnt in Chapter II., is a short cylinder rounded at
the bottom.  It is formed of compact white satin, an insuperable barrier.
It opens into a round orifice wherein is bedded a lid of the same
material, through which the feeble beasties would be incapable of
passing.  It is not a porous felt, but a fabric as tough as that 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, the lid of a
saucepan fits the mouth by means of a projecting rim, with this
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, lifts and allows the new-born
Spiders to pass through.

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

When fully ripened, the dry fruit of the snap-dragon opens three windows;
that of the pimpernel splits into two rounded halves, something like
those of the outer case of a fob-watch; the fruit of the carnation partly
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 work smoothly
by the mere kiss of the sun.

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

Come June and July, beloved of the Cicadae, no less beloved of the young
Spiders who are anxious to be off.  It were difficult indeed for 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 edges of 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 a ceiling dug
out cup-wise.  The material is as stout in this part as 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 be unfastened.

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

Moreover, to tell the truth, it is not a dehiscence prepared by means of
some dainty piece of mechanism; it is a very irregular tear.  Somewhat
sharply, under the fierce heat of the sun, the satin bursts like 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 of the russet eiderdown
that fills the wallet invariably straggles through the 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 their
contents, burst under the rays of a torrid sun.  To break they need the
fiery heat-waves of the dog-days.  When kept in the moderate atmosphere
of my study, most of them do not open and the emergence of the young does
not take place, unless I myself I have a hand in the business; a few
others open with a round hole, a hole so neat that it might have been
made with a punch.  This aperture is the work of the prisoners, who,
relieving one another in turns, have, with a patient tooth, bitten
through the stuff of the jar at some point or other.

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

A very small part of the family are expelled with the flow of tawny
floss; the vast majority remain in the bag, which is ripped open, but
still bulges with eiderdown.  Now that the breach is made, any one 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 not fall on the same
date for all.  The evacuation of the place, therefore, lasts several
days.  It is effected in small squads, as the slough is 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 Cross Spider.  The
spinnerets abandon to the breeze a thread that floats, breaks and flies
away, carrying the rope-maker with it.  The number of starters on any one
morning is so small as to rob the spectacle of the greater part of its
interest.  The scene lacks animation because of the absence of a crowd.

To my intense disappointment, the Silky Epeira does not either indulge in
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 is made of a
stouter and especially a thicker material than the Banded Epeira's
balloon, for which reason a spontaneous rupture becomes more necessary
than ever.

This rupture is effected at the sides of the bag, not far from the edge
of the lid.  Like the ripping of the balloon, it requires the rough aid
of the heat of July.  Its mechanism also seems to work by the expansion
of the heated air, for we again see a partial emission 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
delicate casting of the skin.  The conical bag falls far short of the
balloon in size; those packed within would sprain their legs in
extracting them from their sheaths.  The family, therefore, emerges in a
body and settles on a sprig hard by.

This is a temporary camping-ground, where, spinning in unison, the
youngsters 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 the trapezes 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 audacious
flights on the thready airship; the journey is accomplished by modest
stages.

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 swinging like a
pendulum, sometimes drives her against a neighbouring branch.  This is a
step towards the dispersal.  At the point reached, there is a fresh fall,
followed by a fresh pendulous swing that lands her a little farther
afield.  Thus, in short tacks, for the thread is never very long, does
the Spiderling go about, seeing the country, until she comes to a place
that suits her.  Should the wind blow at all hard, the voyage is cut
short: the cable of the pendulum breaks and the beastie is carried for
some distance on its cord.

To sum up, although, on the whole, the tactics of the exodus remain much
the same, the two spinstresses of my region best-versed in the art 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 Spider offered me by
chance?  I shall find it--in an even more striking fashion--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 known
officially as _Thomisus onustus_, WALCK.  Though the name suggest nothing
to the reader's mind, it has the advantage, at any rate, of hurting
neither the throat nor the ear, as is too often the case with scientific
nomenclature, which sounds more like sneezing than articulate speech.
Since it is the rule to dignify plants and animals with a Latin label,
let us at least respect the euphony of the classics and refrain from
harsh splutters which spit out a name instead of pronouncing it.

What will posterity do in face of the rising tide of a barbarous
vocabulary 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 the term Crab
Spider, applied by the ancients to the group to which the Thomisus
belongs, a pretty accurate term, for, in this case, there is an evident
analogy between the Spider and the Crustacean.

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

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

The Bee appears, seeking no quarrel, intent upon plunder.  She tests the
flowers with her tongue; she selects a spot that will yield a 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 a sudden rush, nabs
her in the nape of the neck.  In vain, the Bee protests and darts her
sting at random; the assailant does not let go.

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

This slaughter of the Bee engaged in the hallowed delights of labour has
always revolted me.  Why should there be workers to feed idlers, why
sweated to keep sweaters in luxury?  Why should so many admirable lives
be sacrificed to the greater prosperity of brigandage?  These hateful
discords amid the general harmony perplex the thinker, all the more as we
shall see the cruel vampire become a model of devotion where her 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 point is that
morsel the be tender and savoury.

According to the etymology of her name--[Greek text], a cord--the
Thomisus should be like the ancient lictor, who bound the sufferer to the
stake.  The comparison is not inappropriate as regards many Spiders who
tie their prey with a thread to subdue it and consume it at their ease;
but it just happens that the Thomisus is 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's godfather overlooked the exception;
he did not know of the perfidious mode 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-huntress carries a heavy paunch is
no reason to refer to this as a distinctive characteristic.  Nearly all
Spiders have a voluminous belly, a silk-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 family snugly.

Can the expression _onustus_ refer simply to her slow and sidelong walk?
The explanation appeals to me, without satisfying me fully.  Except in
the case of a sudden alarm, every Spider maintains a sober gait and a
wary pace.  When all is said, the scientific term is composed of a
misconception and a worthless epithet.  How difficult it is to name
animals rationally!  Let us be indulgent to the nomenclator: the
dictionary is becoming exhausted and the constant flood that requires
cataloguing 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, in the
waste-lands of the South.  The murderess of the Bees is of a chilly
constitution; in our parts, she hardly ever moves away from the olive-
districts.  Her favourite shrub is the white-leaved rock-rose (_Cistus
albidus_), with the large, pink, crumpled, ephemeral blooms that last but
a morning and are replaced, next day, by fresh flowers, which have
blossomed in the cool dawn.  This glorious efflorescence goes on for five
or six weeks.

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

After all, this cutter of Bees' throats is a pretty, a very pretty
creature, despite her unwieldy paunch fashioned like a squat pyramid and
embossed on the base, on either side, with a pimple shaped like a camel's
hump.  The skin, more pleasing to the eye than any satin, is milk-white
in some, in others lemon-yellow.  There are fine ladies among them who
adorn their legs with a number of pink bracelets and their back with
carmine arabesques.  A narrow pale-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 more elegant because of its soberness, its daintiness
and the artful blending of its hues.  Novice fingers, which shrink from
touching any other Spider, allow themselves to be enticed by these
attractions; they do not 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-hair and bits of
wool, the Goldfinch, the Chaffinch and other masters of the builder's art
construct an aerial bower in the fork of the branches.  Herself a lover
of high places, the Thomisus selects as the site of her nest one of the
upper twigs of the rock-rose, her regular hunting-ground, a twig withered
by the heat and possessing a few dead leaves, which curl into a little
cottage.  This is where she settles with a view to her eggs.

Ascending and descending with a gentle swing in more or less every
direction, the living shuttle, swollen with silk, weaves a bag whose
outer casing becomes one with the dry leaves around.  The work, which is
partly visible and partly hidden by its supports, is a pure dead-white.
Its shape, moulded in the angular interval between the 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 hermetically
closed with a lid of the same white silk.  Lastly, a few threads,
stretched like a thin curtain, form a canopy above the nest and, with the
curved tips of the leaves, frame a sort of alcove wherein the mother
takes 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 sprawling
until the youngsters' exodus.  Greatly emaciated by the laying of her
eggs and by her expenditure of silk, she lives only for the protection of
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 with a straw, she
parries with big gestures, like those of a prize-fighter.  She uses her
fists against my weapon.  When I propose to dislodge her in view of
certain experiments, I find some difficulty in doing so.  She clings to
the silken floor, she frustrates my attacks, which I am bound to moderate
lest I should injure her.  She is no 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 away her
pill.  Each displays the same pluck and the same devotion; and also the
same denseness in distinguishing her property from that of others.  The
Lycosa accepts without hesitation any strange pill which she is, given in
exchange for her own; she confuses alien produce with the produce of her
ovaries and her silk-factory.  Those hallowed words, maternal love, were
out of place here: it is an impetuous, an almost 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 upon it and never stirs from it,
even though the different arrangement of the 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 her mistake; she watches over
another's nest with the same vigilance which she might show in watching
over her own.

The Lycosa surpasses her in maternal blindness.  She fastens to her
spinnerets and dangles, by way of a bag of eggs, a ball of cork polished
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 closed cone, turning the
fragments so as to bring the smoother and more delicate inner surface
outside.  My attempt was unsuccessful.  When removed from her home and
placed on the artificial wallet, the mother Thomisus obstinately refused
to settle there.  Can she be more clear-sighted than the Lycosa?  Perhaps
so.  Let us not be too extravagant with our praise, however; the
imitation of the bag was a very clumsy one.

The work of laying is finished by the end of May, after which, lying flat
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 does the prey buzz close by, an easy
capture within the cage: the watcher does not shift from her post, takes
no notice of the windfall.  She lives exclusively upon maternal devotion,
a commendable but unsubstantial fare.  And so I see her pining away from
day to day, becoming more and more wrinkled.  What is the withered thing
waiting for, before expiring?  She is waiting for her children to emerge;
the dying creature 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.  The balloon has to
split automatically and to scatter the youngsters and their flossy
mattress all mixed up together.  The Thomisus' wallet, sheathed in leaves
over the greater part of its surface, never bursts; nor does the lid
rise, so carefully is it sealed down.  Nevertheless, after the delivery
of the brood, we see, at the edge of the lid, a small, gaping hole, an
exit-window.  Who contrived this window, which was not there at first?

The fabric is too thick and tough to have yielded to the twitches of 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 five or six weeks, despite
her shattered health, so as to give a last helping hand and open the door
for her family.  After performing this duty, she gently lets herself die,
hugging her nest and turning into a shrivelled relic.

When July comes, the little ones emerge.  In view of their acrobatic
habits, I have placed a bundle of slender twigs at the top of the cage in
which they were born.  All of them pass through the wire gauze and form a
group on the summit of the brushwood, where they swiftly weave a spacious
lounge of criss-cross threads.  Here they remain, pretty quietly, for a
day or two; then foot-bridges begin to be flung from 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 slowly and
unsteadily.  There are hesitations, retrogressions, perpendicular falls
at the end of a thread, ascents that bring the hanging Spider up 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, all eager to be
off, and place it on the window-sill, in the glare of the sun.  After a
few minutes of heat and light, the scene assumes a very different aspect.
The emigrants run to the top of the twigs, bustle about actively.  It
becomes a bewildering rope-yard, where thousands of legs are drawing the
hemp from the spinnerets.  I do not see the ropes manufactured and sent
floating at the mercy of the air; but I guess their presence.

Three or four Spiders start at a time, each going her own way in
directions independent of her neighbours'.  All are moving upwards, all
are climbing some support, as can be perceived by the nimble motion of
their legs.  Moreover, the road is visible behind the climber, it is of
double thickness, thanks to an added thread.  Then, at a certain height,
individual movement ceases.  The tiny animal soars in space and shines,
lit up by the sun.  Softly it sways, then suddenly takes flight.

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

But the throng has finished its preparations; the hour has come to
disperse in swarms.  We now see, from the crest of the brushwood, a
continuous spray of starters, who shoot up like microscopic projectiles
and mount in a spreading cluster.  In the end, it is like the bouquet at
the finish of a pyrotechnic display, the sheaf of rockets fired
simultaneously.  The comparison is correct down to the dazzling light
itself.  Flaming in the sun like so many gleaming points, the little
Spiders are the sparks of that living firework.  What a glorious send-
off! What an entrance into the world!  Clutching its aeronautic thread,
the minute 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 crumbles the
mule-droppings in the road and thus picks up his food, the oaten grain
which he would never find by soaring in the sky, his throat swollen with
song.  We have to descend; the stomach's inexorable claims 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 Midges does 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 large and 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 stretched upon 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 in a brushwood hut,
works them and brings them together suddenly, like a pair of shutters.

Divided between the two nets are the cages of the decoy-birds--Linnets
and Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Yellowhammers, Buntings and
Ortolans--sharp-eared creatures which, on perceiving the distant passage
of a flock of their own kind, forthwith utter a short calling note.  One
of them, the _Sambe_, an irresistible tempter, hops about and flaps his
wings in apparent freedom.  A bit of twine fastens him to his convict's
stake.  When, worn with fatigue and driven desperate by his vain attempts
to get away, the sufferer lies down flat and refuses to do his duty, the
fowler is able to stimulate him without stirring from his hut.  A long
string sets in motion a little lever working on a 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 chirp their rallying-cry:

'Pinck!  Pinck!'

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

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

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

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

The snow-ball rolling over the carpet of white grows enormous, however
scanty each fresh layer be.  Even so with truth in observational science:
it is built up of trifles patiently gathered together.  And, while the
collecting of these trifles means that the student of Spider industry
must not be chary of his time, at least it involves no distant and
speculative research.  The smallest garden contains Epeirae, all
accomplished weavers.

In my enclosure, which I have stocked carefully with the most famous
breeds, I have six different species under observation, all of a useful
size, 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-tinted Epeira (_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 question
them, to watch them at work, now this one, anon that, according to the
chances of the day.  What I did not see very plainly yesterday I can see
the next day, under better conditions, and on any of the following days,
until the phenomenon under observation is revealed in all clearness.

Let us go every evening, step by step, from one border of tall rosemaries
to the next.  Should things move too slowly, we will sit down at the foot
of the shrubs, opposite the rope-yard, where the light falls favourably,
and watch with unwearying attention.  Each trip will be 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 joining a not overcrowded
profession, I admit.  Heaven knows, it does not enable one to put money
by!  No matter: the meditative mind returns from that school fully
satisfied.

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

My subjects, in the first instance, are young and boast but a slight
corporation, very far removed from what it will be in the late autumn.
The belly, the wallet containing the rope-works, hardly exceeds a
peppercorn in bulk.  This slenderness on the part of the spinstresses
must not prejudice us against their work: there is no parity between
their skill and their years.  The adult Spiders, with their disgraceful
paunches, can do no better.

Moreover, the beginners have one very precious advantage for the
observer: they work by day, work even in the sun, whereas the old ones
weave only at night, at unseasonable hours.  The first show us the
secrets of their looms without much difficulty; the others conceal them
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 us stop in front of
this one, whom we surprise in the act of laying the foundations of the
structure.  Without any appreciable order, she runs about the rosemary-
hedge, from the tip of one branch to another within the limits of some
eighteen inches.  Gradually, she puts a thread in position, drawing it
from her wire-mill with the combs attached to her hind-legs.  This
preparatory work presents no appearance of a concerted plan.  The Spider
comes and goes impetuously, as though at random; she goes up, comes down,
goes up again, dives down again and each time strengthens the points of
contact with intricate moorings distributed here and there.  The result
is a scanty and disordered scaffolding.

Is disordered the word?  Perhaps not.  The Epeira's eye, more experienced
in matters of this sort than mine, has recognized the 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's designs.
What is it that she really wants?  A solid frame to contain the network
of the web.  The shapeless structure which she 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 done all
over again, each evening, from top to bottom, for the incidents of the
chase destroy it in a night.  The net is as yet too delicate to resist
the desperate struggles of the captured prey.  On the other hand, the
adults' net, which is formed of stouter threads, is adapted to last some
time; and the Epeira gives it a more carefully-constructed framework, as
we shall see elsewhere.

A special thread, the foundation of the real net, is stretched across the
area so capriciously circumscribed.  It is distinguished from the others
by its isolation, its position at a distance from any twig that might
interfere with its swaying length.  It never fails to have, 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, the post that
will guide the Epeira and bring order into the wilderness of twists and
turns.

The time has come to weave the hunting-snare.  The Spider starts from the
centre, which bears the white signpost, and, running along the
transversal thread, hurriedly reaches the circumference, that is to say,
the irregular frame enclosing the free space.  Still with the 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 slant in the most
unexpected manner.  Each time, a radius or spoke is laid, here, there, or
elsewhere, in what looks like mad disorder.

The operation is so erratically conducted that it takes the most
unremitting attention to follow it at all.  The Spider reaches the margin
of the area by one of the spokes already placed.  She goes along this
margin for some distance from the point at which she landed, fixes her
thread to the frame and returns to the centre by the same road which she
has just taken.

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

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

The eventual regularity of the work suggests that the radii are spun in
the same order in which they figure in the web, each following
immediately upon its next neighbour.  Matters pass in another manner,
which at first looks like disorder, but which is really a judicious
contrivance.  After setting a few spokes in one direction, the Epeira
runs across to the other side to draw some in the opposite direction.
These sudden changes of course are highly logical; they show us how
proficient the Spider is in the mechanics of rope-construction.  Were
they to succeed one another regularly, the spokes of one group, having
nothing as 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 whole by its resistance.  Any combination of forces acting in one
direction must 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 serving an apprenticeship.

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

Now which of us would undertake, off-hand, without much preliminary
experiment and without measuring-instruments, to divide a circle into a
given quantity of sectors of equal width?  The Epeirae, though weighted
with a wallet and tottering on threads shaken by the wind, effect the
delicate division without stopping to think.  They achieve it 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 angles are only
approximately equal; they satisfy the demands of the eye, but cannot
stand the test of strict measurement.  Mathematical precision would be
superfluous here.  No matter, we are amazed at the result obtained.  How
does the Epeira come to succeed with her difficult problem, so strangely
managed?  I am still asking myself the question.

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

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

Let us not be misled by the word 'spiral,' which conveys the notion of a
curved line.  All curves are banished from the Spiders' 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 geometry understands it.  To this
polygonal line, a work destined to disappear as the real toils are woven,
I will give the name of the 'auxiliary spiral.'  Its object is to supply
cross-bars, supporting rungs, especially in the outer zone, where the
radii are too distant from one another to afford a suitable groundwork.
Its object is also to guide the Epeira in the extremely delicate business
which she is now about to undertake.

But, before that, one last task becomes essential.  The area occupied by
the spokes is very irregular, being marked out by the supports of the
branch, which are infinitely variable.  There are angular niches which,
if skirted too closely, would disturb the symmetry of the web about to be
constructed.  The Epeira needs an exact space wherein gradually to lay
her spiral thread.  Moreover, she must not leave any gaps through which
her prey might find an outlet.

An expert in these matters, the Spider soon knows the corners that have
to be filled up.  With an alternating movement, first in this direction,
then in that, she lays, upon the support of the radii, a thread that
forms two acute angles at the lateral boundaries of the faulty part and
describes a zigzag line not wholly unlike the ornament known 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 for which all the
rest is but a support.  Clinging on the one hand to the radii, on the
other to the chords of the auxiliary spiral, the Epeira covers the same
ground as when laying the spiral, but in the opposite direction:
formerly, she moved away from the centre; now she moves towards it and
with closer and more numerous circles.  She starts from the base of the
auxiliary spiral, near the frame.

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

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 'outer leg.'

The latter draws the thread from the spinneret and passes it to the inner
leg, which, with a graceful movement, lays it on the radius crossed.  At
the same time, the first leg measures the distance; it grips the last
coil placed in position and brings within a suitable range that point of
the radius whereto the thread is to be fixed.  As soon as 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 the
auxiliary chords that have just served as her support.  When, in the end,
these chords become too close, they will have to go; they would impair
the symmetry of the work.  The Spider, therefore, clutches and 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 gathers them 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 disappearing spiral.

The light has to fall favourably for us to perceive these specks, the
only remains of the ruined auxiliary thread.  One would take them for
grains of dust, if the faultless regularity of their distribution did not
remind us of the vanished spiral.  They continue, still visible, 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 her
thread at each spoke which she crosses.  A good half-hour, an hour even
among the full-grown Spiders, is spent on spiral circles, to the number
of about fifty for the web of the Silky Epeira and thirty for those of
the Banded and the Angular Epeira.

At last, at some distance from the centre, on the borders of what I have
called the resting-floor, the Spider abruptly terminates her spiral when
the space would still allow of a certain number of turns.  We shall see
the reason of this sudden stop presently.  Next, the Epeira, no matter
which, young or old, hurriedly flings herself upon the little central
cushion, pulls it out and rolls it into a ball which I expected to see
thrown away.  But no: her thrifty nature does not permit this waste.  She
eats the cushion, at first an inaugural landmark, then a heap of bits of
thread; she once more melts in the digestive crucible what is no doubt
intended to be restored to the silken treasury.  It is a tough mouthful,
difficult for the stomach to elaborate; still, it is precious and must
not be lost.  The work finishes with the swallowing.  Then and there, the
Spider instals herself, 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 has never been
explained, our right side is stronger and readier in its movements than
our left.  The inequality is especially noticeable in the two hands.  Our
language expresses this supremacy of the favoured side in the terms
dexterity, adroitness and address, all of which 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 Grasshopper and
many others draw their bow, which is on the right wing-case, over the
sounding apparatus, which is on the left wing-case.  They are
right-handed.

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

It would be interesting to try and work out to what extent that part of
the zoological kingdom which boasts a two-sided structure is divided into
right-handed and left-handed animals.  Can dissymetry, that source 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 very enviable privilege of possessing a
left side which is no less capable than the right.  She is ambidextrous,
as witness the following observations.

When laying her snaring-thread, every Epeira turns in either direction
indifferently, as a close watch will prove.  Reasons whose secret escapes
us determine the direction adopted.  Once this or the other course is
taken, the spinstress does not change it, even after incidents that
sometimes occur to disturb the progress of the work.  It may happen that
a Gnat gets caught in the part already woven.  The Spider thereupon
abruptly interrupts her labours, hastens up to the prey, binds it and
then returns to where she stopped and continues the spiral in the same
order as before.

At the commencement of the work, gyration in one direction being employed
as well as gyration in the other, we see that, when making her repeated
webs, the same Epeira turns now her right side, now her left to the
centre of the coil.  Well, as we have said, it is always with 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 places the thread in
position, an exceedingly delicate operation calling for the display of
exquisite skill, because of the quickness of the action and the need for
preserving strictly equal distances.  Any one seeing 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 their craft from
the moment that the first thread is laid.  We have learnt something from
the novices: let us now look into the matter of their elders and see what
additional task the needs of age impose upon them.

July comes and gives me exactly what I wish for.  While the new
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 exceptional at
this season, proclaims the fact.  I know her for the Angular Epeira
(_Epeira angulata_, WALCK.), clad in grey and girdled with two dark
stripes that meet in a point at the back.  The base of her abdomen swells
into a short nipple on either side.

This neighbour will certainly serve my turn, provided that she do not
work too late at night.  Things bode well: I catch the buxom one in the
act of laying her first threads.  At this rate my success need 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 eight to ten o'clock in the
evening, to watch the construction of the web, which is more or less
ruined nightly by the incidents of the chase and built up again, next
day, when too seriously dilapidated.

During the two stifling months, when the light fails and a spell of
coolness follows upon the furnace-heat of the day, it is easy for me,
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 entrance to an alley
haunted by Moths.  The spot appears well-chosen, for the Epeira does not
change it throughout the season, though she renews her net almost every
night.

Punctually as darkness falls, our whole family goes and calls upon her.
Big and little, we stand amazed at her wealth of belly and her exuberant
somersaults in the maze of quivering ropes; we admire the faultless
geometry of the net as it gradually takes shape.  All agleam in the
lantern-light, the work becomes a fairy orb, which seems 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 a less hurry to
go to bed: they will want to see everything, to the very end.  What
delightful, simple evenings we have spent looking into the Spider's
workshop!

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

The descent, however, has not the brute speed which the force of gravity
would give it, if uncontrolled.  It is governed by the action of the
spinnerets, which contract or expand their pores, or close them entirely,
at the faller's pleasure.  And so, with gentle moderation she pays out
this living plumb-line, of which my lantern clearly shows me the plumb,
but not always the line.  The great squab seems at such times to be
sprawling in space, without the least support.

She comes to an abrupt stop two inches from the ground; the silk-reel
ceases working.  The Spider turns round, clutches the line which she 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 and
floating loosely in a current of air.  She fixes her end where it suits
her and waits until the other end, wafted by the wind, has fastened its
loop to the adjacent twigs.

The desired result may be very slow in coming.  It does not tire 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, at a convenient
height.  The foot-bridge erected with my assistance is 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, from end
to end, adding a fibre to it on each journey.  Whether I help or not,
this forms the 'suspension-cable,' the main piece of 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 numerous constituent parts,
which are the product of as many crossings.  These diverging fibres, with
their several contact-points, increase the steadiness of the two
extremities.

The suspension-cable is incomparably stronger than the rest of the work
and lasts for an indefinite time.  The web is generally shattered after
the night's hunting and is nearly always rewoven on the following
evening.  After the removal of the wreckage, it is made all over again,
on the same site, cleared of everything except the cable from which the
new network is to hang.

The laying of this cable is a somewhat difficult matter, because the
success of the enterprise does not depend upon the animal's industry
alone.  It has to wait until a breeze carries the line to the pier-head
in the bushes.  Sometimes, a calm prevails; sometimes, the thread catches
at an unsuitable point.  This involves great expenditure of time, with no
certainty of success.  And so, when once the suspension-cable is in
being, well and solidly placed, the Epeira does not change it, except on
critical occasions.  Every evening, she passes and repasses over it,
strengthening it with fresh threads.

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

Once the cable is laid, in this way or in that, the Spider is in
possession of a base that allows her to approach or withdraw from the
leafy piers at will.  From the height of the cable, the upper boundary of
the projected works, she lets herself slip to a slight depth, varying the
points of her fall.  She climbs up again by the line produced by her
descent.  The result of the operation is a double thread which is unwound
while the Spider walks along her big foot-bridge to the contact-branch,
where she fixes the free end of her thread more or 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-changing
directions.  When there are enough of them, the Epeira need no longer
resort to falls in order to extract her threads; she goes from one cord
to the next, always wire-drawing with her hind-legs and placing her
produce in position as she goes.  This results in a combination of
straight lines owning no order, save that they are kept in one, nearly
perpendicular plane.  They mark a very irregular polygonal area, wherein
the web, itself a work of magnificent regularity, shall presently be
woven.

It is unnecessary to go over the construction of the masterpiece again;
the younger Spiders have taught us enough in this respect.  In both
cases, we see the same equidistant radii laid, with a central landmark
for a guide; the same auxiliary spiral, the scaffolding of temporary
rungs, soon doomed to disappear; the same snaring-spiral, with its maze
of closely-woven coils.  Let us pass on: other details call 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 knowing whether,
if subjected to the din of unaccustomed sounds, the Spider would hesitate
and blunder.  Does she work imperturbably?  Or does she need undisturbed
quiet?  As it is, I know that my presence and that of my light hardly
trouble her at all.  The sudden flashes emitted 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, neither faster nor slower.  This is a
good omen for the experiment which I have in view.

The first Sunday in August is the feast of the patron saint of the
village, 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 will take place on the high-
road outside my door, at a few steps from the spot where my Spider is
working.  The spinstress is busy upon her great spiral at the very moment
when the village big-wigs arrive with trumpet 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 hullabaloo of the crowd,
the reports of the mortars, the crackle of Roman candles bursting in the
sky, the hiss of the rockets, the rain of sparks, the sudden flashes of
white, red or blue light: none of this disturbs the worker, who
methodically turns and turns again, just as she does in the peace of
ordinary evenings.

Once before, the gun which I fired under the plane-trees failed to
trouble the concert of the Cicadae; to-day, the dazzling light of the
fire-wheels and the splutter of the crackers do not avail to distract the
Spider from her weaving.  And, after all, what difference would it make
to my neighbour if the world fell in!  The village could be 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 usual
tranquil conditions.  The great spiral has been finished, abruptly, on
the confines of the resting-floor.  The central cushion, a mat of ends of
saved thread, is next pulled up and eaten.  But, before indulging in this
mouthful, which closes the proceedings, two Spiders, the only two of the
order, the Banded and the Silky Epeira, have still to sign their work.  A
broad, white ribbon is laid, in a thick zigzag, from the centre to the
lower edge of the orb.  Sometimes, but not always, a second band of the
same shape and of lesser length occupies 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 web nightly, even
though it be none too much dilapidated and might well serve again.  A
brand-new snare at sunset is the rule with them.  And there is little
need for increased solidity when the work has to be done again on the
morrow.

On the other hand, in the late autumn, the full-grown Spiders, feeling
laying-time at hand, are driven to practise economy, in view of the great
expenditure of silk required for the egg-bag.  Owing to its large size,
the net now becomes a costly work which it were well to use as long as
possible, for fear of finding one's reserves exhausted when the time
comes for the expensive construction of the nest.  For this reason, or
for others which escape me, the Banded and the Silky Epeirae think it
wise to produce durable work and to strengthen their toils with a cross-
ribbon.  The other Epeirae, who are put to less expense in the
fabrication of their maternal wallet--a mere pill--are unacquainted with
the zigzag binder and, like the younger Spiders, reconstruct their web
almost nightly.

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

The collected ruins form a pill which the Spider consumes with the same
greed that she would show in swallowing her prey.  Nothing remains.  This
is the second instance of the Spiders' supreme economy of their silk.  We
have seen them, after the manufacture of the net, eating the central
guide-post, a modest mouthful; we now see them gobbling up the whole web,
a meal.  Refined and turned into fluid by the stomach, the materials of
the old net will serve for other purposes.

As goon as the site is thoroughly cleared, the work of the frame and the
net begins on the support of the suspension-cable which was respected.
Would it not be simpler to restore the old web, which might 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, as a thrifty housewife darns her
linen?  That is the question.

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

People declare as much, without, apparently, looking into the matter very
closely.  They seem able to dispense with the conscientious observer'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 experiment if the Spider really knows
how to repair her work.

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

The Spider retreats to her cable and looks on without being greatly
frightened.  When I have done, she quietly returns.  She takes her stand
on one of the halves, at the spot which was the centre of the original
orb; but, as her legs find no footing on one side, she soon realizes that
the snare is defective.  Thereupon, two threads are stretched across the
breach, two threads, no more; the legs that lacked a foothold spread
across them; and henceforth the Epeira moves no 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 increase the 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 least it will fill the gap and the
continuous sheet will be of the same use practically as the regular web.'

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

The two threads stretched across the breach even must not be taken for an
attempt at repairing.  Finding no foothold for her legs on one side, the
Spider went to look into the state of things and, in so doing, crossed
the rent.  In going and returning, she left a thread, as is the custom
with all the Epeirae when walking.  It was not a deliberate mending, but
the mere result of an uneasy change of place.

Perhaps the subject of my experiment thought it unnecessary to go to
fresh trouble and expense, for the web can serve quite well as it is,
after my scissor-cut: the two halves together represent the original
snaring-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 her with 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 central post, I
take a straw and, wielding it dexterously, so as to respect the resting-
floor and the spokes, I pull and root up the spiral, which dangles in
tatters.  With its snaring-threads ruined, the net is useless; no passing
Moth would allow herself to be caught.  Now what does the Epeira do in
the face of this disaster?  Nothing at all.  Motionless on her resting-
floor, which I have left intact, she awaits the capture of the game; she
awaits it all night in vain on her impotent web.  In the morning, I find
the snare as I left it.  Necessity, the mother of invention, has not
prompted the Spider to make a slight repair in her ruined toils.

Possibly this is asking too much of her resources.  The silk-glands may
be exhausted after the laying of the great spiral; and to repeat the same
expenditure immediately is out of the question.  I want a 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 rushes fun
tilt into the unfinished snare.  The Epeira interrupts her work, hurries
to the giddy-pate, swathes him and takes her fill of him where he lies.
During the struggle, a section of the web has torn under the weaver's
very eyes.  A great gap endangers the satisfactory working of the net.
What will the spider do in the presence of this grievous rent?

Now or never is the time to repair the broken threads: the accident has
happened this very moment, between the animal's legs; it is certainly
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 Epeira does
no mending at all.  She flings aside her prey, after taking a few sips at
it, and resumes her spiral at the point where she interrupted it to
attack the Moth.  The torn part remains as it is.  The machine-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; all the
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 two
reconstruct theirs only very seldom and use them even when extremely
dilapidated.  They go on hunting with shapeless rags.  Before they bring
themselves to weave a new web, the old one has to be ruined beyond
recognition.  Well, I have often noted the state of one of these ruins
and, the next morning, I have found it as it was, or even more
dilapidated.  Never any repairs; never; never.  I am sorry, because of
the reputation which our hard-pressed theorists have given her, but the
Spider is absolutely unable to mend her work.  In spite of her thoughtful
appearance, the Epeira is incapable of the modicum of reflexion required
to insert a piece into an accidental gap.

Other Spiders are unacquainted with wide-meshed nets and weave satins
wherein 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 angular
extensions.  The best-protected nook at one side contains the owner's
secret apartment.  It is a silk tube, a gallery with a conical opening,
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 whereon the
Spider, attending to the affairs of her estate, goes her rounds,
especially at night.  The real trap consists of a confusion of lines
stretched above the web.

The snare, constructed according to other rules than in the case of the
Epeirae, also works differently.  Here are no viscous threads, but plain
toils, rendered invisible by the very number.  If a Gnat rush into the
perfidious entanglement, he is caught at once; and the more he struggles
the more firmly is he bound.  The snareling falls on the sheet-web.
_Tegenaria_ hastens up and bites him in the neck.

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

Here, the matter would appear obvious.  The House Spider has mended 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 to her 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 for
watching and exploring; it is also a sheet into which the insects caught
in the overhead rigging fall.  This surface, a domain subject to
unlimited shocks, is never strong enough, especially as it is exposed to
the additional burden of little bits of plaster loosened from the wall.
The owner is constantly working at it; she adds a new layer nightly.

Every time that she issues from her tubular retreat or returns to it, 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 fancies that guide
the Spider's path, converge upon the entrance of the tube.  Each step
taken, beyond a doubt, adds a filament to the web.

We have here the story of the Processionary of the Pine, {30} whose
habits I have related elsewhere.  When the caterpillars leave the silk
pouch, to go and browse at night, and also when they enter it 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 from top
to bottom with my scissors, the Processionaries upholster the breach even
as they upholster the untouched part, without paying more attention to 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 crevice is
closed, in course of time, not intentionally, but solely by the action of
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 without
drawing a distinction between the solid and the hollow.  She has not
deliberately put a patch in the torn texture; she has simply gone on with
her ordinary business.  If it happen that the hole is eventually closed,
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 mend her web,
all her endeavours would be concentrated upon the rent.  She would devote
to it all the silk at her disposal and obtain in one sitting 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 every
elsewhere, neither more nor less.  Far from squandering silk upon it, she
saved her silk so as to have enough for the whole web.  The gap will be
better mended, little by little, afterwards, as the sheet is strengthened
all over with new layers.  And this will take long.  Two months later,
the window--my work--still shows through and makes a dark stain against
the dead-white of the fabric.

Neither weavers nor spinners, therefore, know how to repair their work.
Those wonderful manufacturers of silk-stuffs lack the least glimmer of
that sacred lamp, reason, which enables the stupidest of darning-women to
mend the heel of an old stocking.  The office of inspector of Spiders'
webs would have its uses, even if it merely 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 fearsome
cunning.  Let us give our attention by preference to that of the Banded
Epeira or that of the Silky Epeira, both of which can be observed at
early morning in all their freshness.

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

The sight is perfectly astounding.  Those threads, on the borderland
between 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 full of a
viscous moisture resembling a strong solution of gum arabic.  I can see a
diaphanous trail of this moisture trickling through the broken ends.
Under the pressure of the thin glass slide that covers them on the stage
of the microscope, the twists lengthen out, become crinkled ribbons,
traversed from end to end, through the middle, by a dark streak, which is
the empty container.

The fluid contents must ooze slowly through the side of those tubular
threads, 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.  When I lift the
straw, the threads come with it and stretch to twice or three times their
length, like a thread of India-rubber.  At last, when over-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 moisture wherewith they
are filled.

In short, the spiral thread is a capillary tube finer than any that our
physics will ever know.  It is rolled into a twist so as to possess an
elasticity that allows it, without breaking, to yield to the tugs of the
captured prey; it holds a supply of sticky matter in reserve in its tube,
so as to renew the adhesive properties of the surface by 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.  And such lime-
snares!  Everything is caught in them, down to the dandelion-plume that
barely brushes against them.  Nevertheless, the Epeira, who is 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 sticky
spiral thread plays no part.  We saw how this thread stops suddenly at
some distance from the centre.  There is here, covering a space which, in
the larger webs, is about equal to the palm of one's hand, a fabric
formed of spokes and of the commencement of the auxiliary spiral, a
neutral fabric in which the exploring straw finds no adhesiveness
anywhere.

Here, on this central resting-floor, and here only, the Epeira takes her
stand, waiting whole days for the arrival of the game.  However close,
however prolonged her contact with this portion of the web, she runs no
risk of sticking to it, because the gummy coating is lacking, as is the
twisted and tubular structure, throughout the length of the spokes and
throughout the extent of the auxiliary spiral.  These pieces, 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 the web, the
Spider has to rush up quickly, to bind it and overcome its attempts to
free itself.  She is walking then upon her network; and I do not find
that she suffers the least inconvenience.  The lime-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 covering the twigs
with glue, to grease our fingers with a few drops of oil, lest we should
get them caught in the sticky matter.  Does the Epeira know the secret of
fatty substances?  Let us try.

I rub my exploring straw with slightly oiled paper.  When applied to 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 not stick to them any more
than to the neutral cords, whether spokes or parts of the framework.  We
were entitled to expect this, judging by the Spider's general immunity.

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

Did I guess aright when I judged that it was a fatty substance that
preserved 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 frequent a part in
animal economy, should not coat the Spider very slightly by the mere act
of perspiration.  We used to rub our fingers with a little oil before
handling the twigs in which the Goldfinch was to be 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 have its
drawbacks.  In the long run, continual contact with those threads might
produce a certain adhesion and inconvenience the Spider, who must
preserve all her agility in order to rush upon the prey before it can
release itself.  For this reason, gummy threads are never used in
building the post of interminable waiting.

It is only on her resting-floor that the Epeira sits, motionless and with
her eight legs outspread, ready to mark the least quiver in the 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 trussing and
nibbling it, she drags her prey at the end of a thread, to consume it 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 chemical
properties, because the quantity is so slight.  The microscope shows it
trickling from the broken threads in the form of a transparent and more
or less granular streak.  The following experiment will tell us more
about it.

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

In twenty-four hours, the threads have lost their contents and are
reduced to almost invisible streaks.  If I then lay a drop of water on
the glass, I get a sticky solution, similar to that which a particle of
gum arabic might yield.  The conclusion is evident: the Epeira's glue is
a substance that absorbs moisture freely.  In an atmosphere with a high
degree of humidity, it becomes saturated and percolates by 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, long
before dawn.  Should the air turn misty, they sometimes leave that part
of the task unfinished: they build the general framework, they lay the
spokes, they even draw the auxiliary spiral, for all these parts are
unaffected by excess of moisture; but they are very careful not to work
at the lime-threads, which, if soaked by the fog, would dissolve into
sticky shreds and lose their efficacy by being wetted.  The net that was
started will be finished to-morrow, if the atmosphere be favourable.

While the highly-absorbent character of the snaring-thread has its
drawbacks, it also has compensating advantages.  Both Epeirae, when
hunting by day, affect those hot places, exposed to the fierce rays of
the sun, wherein the Crickets delight.  In the torrid heats of 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 of the 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 degree and
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 laying
lime-snares?  And all this industry and cunning for the capture of a
Moth!

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

I should like an anatomist endowed with better implements than mine and
with less tired eyesight to explain to us the work of the marvellous rope-
yard.  How is the silky matter moulded into a capillary tube?  How is
this tube filled with glue and tightly twisted?  And how does this same
wire-mill also turn out plain threads, wrought first into a framework and
then into muslin and satin; next, a russet foam, such as fills the wallet
of the Banded Epeira; next, the black stripes stretched in meridian
curves on that same wallet?  What a number of 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 their webs,
even under the blinding rays of a fierce sun.  The others, as a rule, do
not show themselves until nightfall.  At some distance from the net, they
have a rough and ready retreat in the brambles, an ambush made of a few
leaves held together by stretched threads.  It is here that, for the most
part, they remain in the daytime, motionless and 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 skims the Dragon-
fly.  Besides, the limy web, despite the rents suffered during the night,
is still in serviceable condition.  If some giddy-pate allow himself to
be caught, will the Spider, at the distance whereto she 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 by the
sight of the captured object.  A very simple experiment will prove this.
I lay upon a Banded Epeira's lime-threads a Locust that second
asphyxiated with carbon disulphide.  The carcass is placed in front, or
behind, or at either side of the Spider, who sits moveless in the centre
of the net.  If the test is to be applied to a species with a daytime
hiding-place amid the foliage, the dead Locust is laid on the web, more
or less near the centre, no matter how.

In both cases, nothing happens at first.  The Epeira remains in her
motionless attitude, even when the morsel is at a short distance in 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 out my patience.  Then,
with a long straw, which enables me to conceal myself slightly, I set the
dead insect trembling.

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

Perhaps the grey colour of the Locust is not sufficiently conspicuous to
attract attention by itself.  Then let us try red, the brightest colour
to our retina and probably also to the Spiders'.  None of the game hunted
by the Epeirae being clad in scarlet, I make a 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 my straw, 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 the
usual game.  They even go so far as to dig their fangs into the bait,
following the rule of the preliminary poisoning.  Then and then only the
mistake is recognized and the tricked Spider retires and does not come
back, unless it be long afterwards, when she flings the cumbersome object
out of the web.

There are also clever ones.  Like the others, these hasten to the red-
woollen lure, which my straw insidiously keeps moving; they come from
their tent among the leaves as readily as from the centre of the web;
they explore it with their palpi and their legs; but, soon perceiving
that the thing is valueless, they are careful not to spend their silk on
useless bonds.  My quivering bait does not deceive them.  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 not by sight.
Before recognizing their mistake, they have to hold the object between
their legs and even to nibble at it a little.  They are extremely short-
sighted.  At a hand's-breadth's distance, the lifeless prey, unable to
shake the web, remains unperceived.  Besides, in many cases, the hunting
takes place in the dense darkness of the night, when sight, even if it
were good, would not avail.

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

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

There is no doubt that this slanting line is a foot-bridge which allows
the Spider to repair hurriedly to the web, when summoned by urgent
business, 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 but a means of rapid
transit between her tent and the net, the foot-bridge would be fastened
to the upper edge of the web.  The journey would be shorter and the slope
less steep.

Why, moreover, does this line always start in the centre of the sticky
network and nowhere else?  Because that is the point where the spokes
meet and, therefore, the common centre of vibration.  Anything that moves
upon the web sets it shaking.  All then that is needed is a thread
issuing from this central point to convey to a distance the 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 than a 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 Spider issues impetuously
from her hut, comes down the foot-bridge, makes a rush 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, and drags 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, before I
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 laid on the
web.  Complete success: the entangled insect struggles, sets the net
quivering; the Spider, on her side, does not stir, as though heedless of
events.

The idea might occur to one that, in this business, the Epeira stays
motionless in her cabin since she is prevented from hurrying down,
because the foot-bridge is broken.  Let us undeceive ourselves: for one
road open to her there are a hundred, all ready to bring her to the place
where her presence is now required.  The network is fastened to 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 and self-absorbed.

Why?  Because her telegraph, being out of order, no longer tells her of
the shaking of the web.  The captured prey is too far off for her to see
it; she is all unwitting.  A good hour passes, with the Locust still
kicking, the Spider impassive, myself watching.  Nevertheless, in the
end, the Epeira wakes up: no longer feeling the signalling-thread, broken
by my scissors, as taut as usual under her legs, 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 forthwith enswathed, after which the signalling-
thread is remade, taking the place of the one which I have broken.  Along
this road the Spider goes home, dragging her prey behind her.

My neighbour, the mighty Angular Epeira, with her telegraph-wire nine
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 the night'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 lofty retreat.

I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a Dragon-fly, who struggles
desperately and sets the whole net a-shaking.  The other, up above,
leaves her lurking-place amid the cypress-foliage, strides swiftly down
along her telegraph-wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, trusses her and at
once climbs home again by the same road, with her prize dangling at her
heels by a thread.  The final sacrifice will take place in the 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 select a 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.  The entangled
morsel remains where it lies, not despised, but unknown.  At nightfall,
the Epeira leaves her cabin, passes over the ruins of her web, finds the
Dragon-fly and eats her on the spot, after which the net is renewed.

One of the Epeirae whom I have had the opportunity of examining
simplifies the system, while retaining the essential mechanism of a
transmission-thread.  This is the Crater Epeira (_Epeira cratera_,
WALCK.), a species seen in spring, at which time she indulges especially
in the chase of the Domestic Bee, upon the flowering rosemaries.  At the
leafy end of a branch, she builds a sort of silken shell, the shape and
size of an acorn-cup.  This is where she sits, with her paunch contained
in the round cavity and her forelegs resting on the ledge, ready to leap.
The lazy creature loves this position and rarely stations herself head
downwards on the web, as do the others.  Cosily ensconced in the hollow
of her cup, she awaits the approaching game.

Her web, which is vertical, as is the rule among the Epeirae, is of a
fair size and always very near the bowl wherein the Spider takes her
ease.  Moreover, it touches the bowl by means of an angular extension;
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 all parts of the
network, is eminently fitted to keep the Spider informed of whatsoever
happens.  It has a double office: it forms part of the Catherine-wheel
supporting the lime-threads and it warns the Epeira by its vibrations.  A
special thread is here superfluous.

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

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

An Angular Epeira, with a remarkably fine belly, has spun her web between
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 following the
telegraph-wire.  It is a vaulted chamber of dead leaves, joined together
with a few bits of silk.  The refuge is deep: the Spider disappears in it
entirely, all but her rounded hind-quarters, which bar the entrance to
the donjon.

With her front half plunged into the back of her hut, the Epeira
certainly cannot see her web.  Even if she had good sight, instead of
being purblind, her position could not possibly allow her to keep the
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 leafy cabin;
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 to speak, on the
telegraph-receiver, knows nothing of one of the most curious instances of
animal cleverness.  Let any game appear upon the scene; and the
slumberer, forthwith aroused by means of the leg receiving the
vibrations, hastens up.  A Locust whom I myself lay on the web procures
her this agreeable shock and what follows.  If she is satisfied with her
bag, I am still more satisfied with what I have learnt.

The occasion is too good not to find out, under better conditions as
regards approach, what the inhabitant of the cypress-trees has already
shown me.  The next morning, I cut the telegraph-wire, this time as long
as one's arm and held, like yesterday, by one of the hind-legs stretched
outside the cabin.  I then place on the web a double prey, a Dragon-fly
and a Locust.  The latter kicks out with his long, spurred shanks; the
other flutters her wings.  The web is tossed about to such an extent that
a number of leaves, just beside the Epeira's nest, move, shaken by the
threads of the framework affixed to them.

And this vibration, though so close at hand, does not rouse the Spider in
the least, does not make her even turn round to enquire what is going on.
The moment that her signalling-thread ceases to work, she knows nothing
of passing events.  All day long, she remains without stirring.  In the
evening, at eight o'clock, she sallies forth to weave the new web and at
last finds the rich windfall whereof she was hitherto unaware.

One word more.  The web is often shaken by the wind.  The different 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 indifferent to the commotion
prevailing in the net.  Her line, therefore, is something better than a
bell-rope that pulls and communicates the impulse given: it is a
telephone capable, like our own, of transmitting infinitesimal waves of
sound.  Clutching her telephone-wire with a toe, the Spider listens with
her leg; she perceives the innermost vibrations; she distinguishes
between the vibration proceeding from a prisoner and the mere shaking
caused by the wind.




CHAPTER XIII: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: PAIRING AND HUNTING


Notwithstanding the importance of the subject, I shall not enlarge upon
the nuptials of the Epeirae, grim natures whose loves easily turn to
tragedy in the mystery of the night.  I have but once been present at the
pairing and for this curious experience I must thank my lucky star and my
fat neighbour, the Angular Epeira, whom I visit so often by
lantern-light.  Here you have it.

It is the first week of August, at about nine o'clock in the evening,
under a perfect sky, in calm, hot weather.  The Spider has 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-operations ought to be in full swing, naturally astonishes me.
Can something unusual be afoot?

Even so.  I see hastening up from the neighbouring bushes and embarking
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 his distant 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 visit the recluse in her bell-jar in my study.
The dwarf of this evening, that other nocturnal pilgrim, crosses the
intricate tangle of the branches without a mistake and makes straight for
the rope-walker.  He has as his guide the infallible compass that brings
every Jack and his Jill together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until then, not a movement: one would think that the animal was
hypnotized by her watching.  At most, on the appearance of anything
suspicious, she begins shaking her nest.  This is her way of inspiring
the intruder with awe.  If I myself wish to provoke the singular alarm, I
have but to tease the Epeira with a bit of straw.  You cannot have a
swing without an impulse of some sort.  The terror-stricken Spider, who
wishes to strike terror into others, has hit upon something much better.
With nothing to push her, she swings with her floor of ropes.  There is
no effort, no visible exertion.  Not a single 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 pondering
the harsh problem of life:

'Shall I dine to-day, or not?'

Certain privileged beings, exempt from those anxieties, have food in
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--only manage
to eat by dint of craft and patience.

You are of their company, O my industrious Epeirae!  So that you may
dine, you spend your treasures of patience nightly; and often without
result.  I sympathize with your woes, for I, who am as concerned as you
about my daily bread, I also doggedly spread my net, the net for catching
ideas, a more elusive and less substantial prize than the Moth.  Let us
not lose heart.  The best part of life is 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 brewing a
storm.  In spite of the threatened downpour, my neighbour, who is a
shrewd weather-prophet, has come out of the cypress-tree and begun to
renew her web at the regular hour.  Her forecast is correct: it will be a
fine night.  See, the steaming-pan of the clouds splits open; and,
through the apertures, the moon peeps, inquisitively.  I too, lantern in
hand, am peeping.  A gust of wind from the north clears the realms on
high; the sky becomes magnificent; perfect calm reigns 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 to
accurate observation.  It is better to turn to those Garden Spiders who
never leave their web and who hunt mainly in the daytime.  The Banded and
the Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rosemaries in the enclosure,
shall show us in broad day-light the innermost details of 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 raises one of its tarsi and
pulls towards itself, the treacherous thread follows, unwinds slightly
and, without letting go or breaking, yields to the captive's desperate
jerks.  Any limb released only tangles the others still more and is
speedily recaptured by the sticky matter.  There is no means of escape,
except by smashing the trap with a sudden effort whereof even powerful
insects are not always capable.

Warned by the shaking of the net, the Epeira hastens up; she turns round
about the quarry; she inspects it at a distance, so as to ascertain the
extent of the danger before attacking.  The strength of the snareling
will decide the plan of campaign.  Let us first suppose the usual case,
that of an average head of game, a Moth or Fly of some sort.  Facing her
prisoner, the Spider contracts her abdomen slightly and touches the
insect for a moment with the end of her spinnerets; then, with her front
tarsi, she sets her victim spinning.  The Squirrel, in the moving
cylinder of his cage, does not display a more graceful or nimbler
dexterity.  A cross-bar of the sticky spiral serves 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 brief contact of
the spinnerets has given a starting-point for a thread, which the Spider
must now draw from her silk-warehouse and gradually roll around the
captive, so as to swathe him in a winding-sheet which will overpower any
effort made.  It is the exact process employed in our wire-mills: a motor-
driven spool revolves and, by its action, draws the wire through the
narrow eyelet of a steel plate, making it of the fineness required, and,
with the same movement, winds it round and round its collar.

Even so with the Epeira's work.  The Spider's front tarsi are the motor;
the revolving spool is the captured insect; the steel eyelet is the
aperture of the spinnerets.  To bind the subject with precision and
dispatch nothing could be better than this inexpensive and
highly-effective method.

Less frequently, a second process is employed.  With a quick movement,
the Spider herself turns round about the motionless insect, crossing the
web first at the top and then at the bottom and gradually placing the
fastenings of her line.  The great elasticity of the lime-threads allows
the Epeira to fling herself time after time right into 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 with a
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 supplied by my
stratagems?

They are, but not without caution.  The game is seen to be perilous of
approach and the Spider turns her back upon it, instead of facing it; she
trains her rope-cannon upon it.  Quickly, the hind-legs draw from the
spinnerets something much better than single cords.  The whole
silk-battery works at one and the same time, firing a regular volley of
ribbons and sheets, which a wide movement of the legs spreads fan-wise
and flings over the entangled prisoner.  Guarding against sudden starts,
the Epeira casts her armfuls of bands on the front-and hind-parts, over
the legs and over the wings, here, there and everywhere, extravagantly.
The most fiery prey is promptly mastered under this avalanche.  In vain,
the Mantis tries to open her saw-toothed arm-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 threads swoops 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 work it
with her leg.  This is too risky; and hence the continuous spray of silk,
at a safe distance.  When all is used up, there is more to come.

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

But with the Praying Mantis, sticking out her long legs and her spreading
wings, rotation is no longer feasible.  Then, until the quarry is
thoroughly subdued, the spray of bandages goes on continuously, even to
the point of drying up the silk-glands.  A capture of this kind is
ruinous.  It is true that, except when I interfered, I have never seen
the Spider tackle that formidable provender.

Be it feeble or strong, the game is now neatly trussed, by one of the two
methods.  The next move never varies.  The bound insect is 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 consumed on
the spot, at the place where it was captured.  But, for a prize of some
importance, on which she hopes to feast for many an hour, sometimes for
many a day, the Spider needs a sequestered dining-room, where there is
naught to fear from the stickiness of the network.  Before going to it,
she first makes her prey turn in the converse direction to that of the
original rotation.  Her object is to free the nearest spokes, which
supplied pivots for the machinery.  They are essential factors which it
behoves her to keep intact, if need be by sacrificing a few cross-bars.

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

While she is refreshing herself, let us enquire into the effects of the
little bite previously administered to the silk-swathed captive.  Does
the Spider kill the patient with a view to avoiding unseasonable jerks,
protests so disagreeable at dinner-time?  Several reasons make me doubt
it.  In the first place, the attack is so much veiled as to have all the
appearance of a mere kiss.  Besides, it is made anywhere, 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 seat of energy.  The paralyzers, those
accomplished anatomists, poison the motor nerve-centres, of which they
know the number and position.  The Epeira possesses none of this fearsome
knowledge.  She inserts her fangs at random, as the Bee does her sting.
She does not select one spot rather than another; she bites indifferently
at whatever comes within reach.  This being so, her poison would have to
possess unparalleled virulence to produce a corpse-like inertia no matter
which the point attacked.  I can scarcely believe in instantaneous death
resulting from the bite, especially in the case of insects, with their
highly-resistant organisms.

Besides, is it really a corpse that the Epeira wants, she who feeds on
blood much more than on flesh?  It were to her advantage to suck a live
body, wherein the flow of the liquids, set in movement by the 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, binds the
prey, nibbles at it gently and withdraws, waiting for the bite to take
effect.  I then take the insect and carefully strip it of its silken
shroud.  The Locust is not dead, far from it; one would even think that
he had suffered no harm.  I examine the released prisoner 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 given to
him just now?  You would be ready to say so, judging by the furious way
in which he kicks in my fingers.  Nevertheless, when put on the ground,
he walks awkwardly, he seems reluctant to hop.  Perhaps it is a temporary
trouble, caused by his terrible excitement in the web.  It looks as
though it would soon pass.

I lodge my Locusts in cages, with a lettuce-leaf to console them for
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 with her
delicate bite; she poisons it so as to produce a gradual weakness, which
gives the blood-sucker ample time to drain her victim, without the least
risk, before the rigor mortis stops the flow of moisture.

The meal lasts quite twenty-four hours, if the joint be large; and to the
very end the butchered insect retains a remnant of life, a favourable
condition for the exhausting of the juices.  Once again, we see a skilful
method of slaughter, very different from the tactics in use among the
expert paralyzers or slayers.  Here there is no display of anatomical
science.  Unacquainted with the patient's structure, the Spider stabs at
random.  The virulence of the poison does the rest.

There are, however, some very few cases in which the bite is speedily
mortal.  My notes speak of an Angular Epeira grappling with the largest
Dragon-fly in my district (_AEshna grandis_, LIN.).  I myself had
entangled in the web this head of big game, which is not often captured
by the Epeirae.  The net shakes violently, seems bound 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 fangs into
the Dragon-fly's back.  The bite is prolonged in such a way as to
astonish me.  This is not the perfunctory kiss with which I am already
familiar; it is a deep, determined wound.  After striking her blow, the
Spider retires to a certain distance and waits for her poison to take
effect.

I at once remove the Dragon-fly.  She is dead, really and truly dead.
Laid upon my table and left alone for twenty-four hours, she makes not
the slightest movement.  A prick of which my lens cannot 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 Trigonocephalus and other ill-famed
serpents produce less paralysing effects upon their victims.

And these Epeirae, so terrible to insects, I am able to handle without
any fear.  My skin does not suit them.  If I persuaded them to bite me,
what would happen to me?  Hardly anything.  We have more cause to dread
the sting of a nettle than the dagger which is fatal to Dragon-flies.  The
same virus acts differently upon this 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 enthusiastic insect-huntress, would make us pay clearly if we
attempted to take liberties with her.

It is not uninteresting to watch the Epeira at dinner.  I light upon one,
the Banded Epeira, at the moment, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
when she has captured a Locust.  Planted in the centre of the web, on her
resting-floor, she attacks the venison at the 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 sort of continuous kiss.

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

Next morning, the Spider is still at table.  I take away her dish.  Naught
remains of the Locust but his skin, hardly altered in shape, but utterly
drained and perforated in several places.  The method, therefore, was
changed during the night.  To extract the non-fluent residue, the viscera
and muscles, the stiff cuticle had to 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 throws up.  This would have been the end of
the victim, had I not taken it away before the time.

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

Had she to operate according to individual structure, she would need an
anatomical dictionary; and instinct is essentially unfamiliar with
generalities: 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; the Scoliae
{34} their Cetonia- 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 us remember, 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 or under the chin, a thing which the
Epeira does not understand; but, just because of this talent, they are
specialists.  Their province is the Domestic Bee.

Animals are a little like ourselves: they excel in an art only on
condition of specializing in it.  The Epeira, who, being omnivorous, is
obliged to generalize, abandons scientific methods and makes up for this
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 manages
not to hesitate amid those many diverse forms, how, for instance, she
passes from the Locust to the Butterfly, so different in appearance.  To
attribute to her as a guide an extensive zoological knowledge were wildly
in excess of what we may reasonably expect of her poor intelligence.  The
thing moves, therefore it is worth catching: this formula seems to 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 between his
paws, and studies it fondly.  It is his sacred property, his chattel.  An
Epeira has woven her web.  Here again is property; and owning a better
title than the other.  Favoured by chance and assisted by his scent, the
Dog has merely had a find; he has neither worked 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 a book,
that other Spider's web, and out of his thought makes something that
shall instruct or thrill us.  To protect our 'bone,' we have the police,
invented for the express purpose.  To protect the book, we have none but
farcical means.  Place a few bricks one atop the other; join them with
mortar; and the law will defend your wall.  Build up in writing an
edifice of your thoughts; and it will be open to any one, without serious
impediment, to abstract stones from it, even to take the whole, if it
suit him.  A rabbit-hutch is property; the work of the mind is not.  If
the animal has eccentric views as regards the possessions of others, we
have ours as well.

'Might always has the best of the argument,' said La Fontaine, to the
great scandal of the peace-lovers.  The exigencies of verse, rhyme and
rhythm, carried the worthy fabulist further than he intended: he meant to
say that, in a fight between mastiffs and in other 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 of the savage maxim that might is
right.

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

True, we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship and other
marvellous means of breaking our bones; but our morality is not one rung
the higher for it all.  One would even say that, the farther we proceed
in our conquest of matter, the more our morality recedes.  The most
advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down with grapeshot
and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing the corn.

Would we see this might triumphant in all its beauty?  Let us spend a few
weeks in the Epeira's company.  She is the owner of a web, her work, her
most lawful property.  The question at once presents itself: Does the
Spider possibly recognize her fabric by 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 the
central floor, settles herself head downwards and does not stir from it,
satisfied with her neighbour's web as with her own.  Neither by day nor
by night does she try to shift her quarters and restore matters to their
pristine state.  Both Spiders think themselves in their own domain.  The
two pieces of work are so much alike that I almost expected this.

I then decide to effect an exchange of webs between two different
species.  I move the Banded Epeira to the net of the Silky Epeira and
vice versa.  The two webs are now dissimilar; the Silky Epeira's has 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 her under her
feet, the other meshes too narrow, they would be frightened by this
sudden change and decamp in terror.  Not at all.  Without a sign of
perturbation, they remain, plant themselves in the centre and await the
coming of the game, as though nothing extraordinary had happened.  They
do more than this.  Days pass and, as long as the unfamiliar web is not
wrecked to the extent of being unserviceable, they make no attempt to
weave another in their own style.  The Spider, therefore, is incapable of
recognizing her web.  She takes another's work for hers, even when it is
produced by a stranger to her race.

We now come to the tragic side of this confusion.  Wishing to have
subjects for study within my daily reach and to save myself the trouble
of casual excursions, I collect different Epeirae whom I find in 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 the sun,
is turned into a well-stocked menagerie.  I take the Spiders from the
paper bags wherein I had put them separately, to carry them, and place
them on the leaves, with no further precaution.  It is for them to make
themselves at home.  As a rule, they do not budge all day from the place
where I put them: they wait for nightfall before seeking a suitable site
whereon to weave a net.

Some among them show less patience.  A little while ago, they possessed 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 their property 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 a Silky Epeira who has been
my guest for some days now.  The owner is at her post, in the centre of
the net.  She awaits the stranger with 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 floor and, in the calmest fashion, eats her.  The dead
Spider is munched for twenty-four hours and drained to the last drop,
when the corpse, a wretched, crumpled ball, is at last flung aside.  The
web so foully 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 of different
species; and the struggle for life often leads to these exterminations
among such as are not akin.  What would happen if the two belonged to the
same species?  It is easily seen.  I cannot rely upon spontaneous
invasions, which may be rare under normal conditions, and I myself place
a Banded Epeira on her kinswoman's web.  A furious attack is made
forthwith.  Victory, after hanging for a moment in the balance, is once
again decided in the stranger's favour.  The vanquished party, this time
a sister, is eaten without the slightest scruple.  Her web becomes the
property of the victor.

There it is, in all its horror, the right of might: to eat one's like 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 substitute in 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 her own accord
attempt the conquest of another's property.  It needs extraordinary
circumstances to rouse her to these villainies.  I take her from her web
and place her on another's.  From that moment, she knows no distinction
between _meum_ and _tuum_: the thing which the leg touches at once
becomes real estate.  And the intruder, if she be the stronger, ends by
eating the occupier, a radical means of cutting short disputes.

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

We will now examine Spiders of more alien habits.  The Banded and the
Silky Epeira differ greatly in form and colouring.  The first has a
plump, olive-shaped belly, richly belted with white, bright-yellow and
black; the second's abdomen is flat, of a silky white and pinked into
festoons.  Judging only by dress and figure, we should not think of
closely connecting the two Spiders.

But high above shapes tower tendencies, those main characteristics which
our methods of classification, so particular about minute details of
form, ought to consult more widely than they do.  The two dissimilar
Spiders have exactly similar ways of living.  Both of them prefer to hunt
by day and never leave their webs; both sign their work with a zigzag
flourish.  Their nets are almost identical, so much so that the Banded
Epeira uses the Silky Epeira's web after eating its owner.  The Silky
Epeira, on her side, when she is the stronger, dispossesses her belted
cousin and devours her.  Each is at home on the other's web, when the
argument of might triumphant has ended the discussion.

Let us next take the case of the Cross Spider, a hairy beast of varying
shades of reddish-brown.  She has three large white spots upon her 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 retreat which
communicates with the lime-snare by means of a telegraph-wire.  Her web
is very similar in structure and appearance to those of the two others.
What will happen if I procure her the visit of a Banded Epeira?

The lady of the triple cross is invaded by day, in the full light of the
sun, thanks to my mischievous intermediary.  The web is deserted; the
proprietress is in her leafy hut.  The telegraph-wire performs its
office; the Cross Spider hastens down, strides all round her 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 of the Silky
Epeira, she would have posted herself in the centre, as soon as the
struggle had ended in the other's death.  This time there is no struggle,
for the web is deserted; nothing prevents her from taking her position in
the centre, the chief strategic point; and yet 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, for that
matter--violently shakes the web to intimidate the aggressor.  This time,
nothing happens: despite my repeated enticements, the Spider does 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 my straw does
induce her to take a few steps, I see her lift her legs with some
difficulty.  She tugs a bit, drags her tarsi till she almost breaks the
supporting threads.  It is not the progress of an agile rope-walker; it
is the hesitating gait of entangled feet.  Perhaps the lime-threads are
stickier than in her own web.  The glue is of a different quality; and
her sandals are not greased to the extent which the new degree of
adhesiveness would demand.

Anyhow, things remain as they are for long hours on end: the Banded
Epeira motionless on the edge of the web; the other lurking in her hut;
both apparently most uneasy.  At sunset, the lover of darkness plucks up
courage.  She descends from her green tent and, without troubling 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 the rosemary-thicket.

The experiment, though repeatedly renewed with different subjects, gave
me no other results.  Distrustful of a web dissimilar to her own, if not
in structure, at least in stickiness, the bold Banded Epeira shows the
white feather and refuses to attack the Cross Spider.  The latter, on her
side, either does not budge from her day shelter in the foliage, or else
rushes back to it, after taking a hurried glance at 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 her mere presence, aided, if need be, by a
cuff or two.  Injured right is the victor.

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

But let the Banded Epeira, deprived of her web, come upon that of one of
her kind or of the Silky Epeira, who works her gummy twine in the same
manner: then discretion is thrown to the winds; the owner is fiercely
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 rein than
impotence.  Mankind, alone capable of emerging from the slough of the
instincts, is bringing equity into being, is creating it slowly as its
conception grows clearer.  Out of the sacred rushlight, so flickering as
yet, but gaining strength from age to age, man will make a flaming torch
that will put an end, among us, to the principles of 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 incomparable
weavers, many other Spiders excel in ingenious devices for filling their
stomachs and leaving a lineage behind them: the two primary laws of
living 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 unknown to the brutal Spider of the waste-lands.  The Lycosa
surrounds the mouth of her shaft with a simple parapet, a mere collection
of tiny pebbles, sticks and silk; the others fix a movable door to
theirs, a round shutter with a hinge, a groove and a set of bolts.  When
the Mygale comes home, the lid drops into the groove and fits so exactly
that there is no possibility of distinguishing the join.  If the
aggressor persist and seek to raise the trap-door, the recluse pushes the
bolt, that is to say, plants her claws into certain holes on the opposite
side to the hinge, props herself against the wall and holds the door
firmly.

Another, the Argyroneta, or Water Spider, builds herself an elegant
silken diving-bell, in which she stores air.  Thus supplied with the
wherewithal to breathe, she awaits the coming of the game and keeps
herself cool meanwhile.  At times of scorching heat, hers must be a
regular sybaritic abode, such as eccentric man has sometimes ventured to
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 should like
to speak of these ingenious workers; I would gladly add a few unpublished
facts to their life-history.  But I must abandon the idea.  The Water
Spider is not found in my district.  The Mygale, the expert in hinged
doors, is found there, but very seldom.  I saw one once, on the edge of a
path skirting a copse.  Opportunity, as we know, is fleeting.  The
observer, more than any other, is obliged to take it by the forelock.
Preoccupied as I was with other researches, I but gave a glance at the
magnificent subject which good 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 is not
necessarily unimportant.  Give it our sustained attention and we shall
discover in it merits which our former ignorance prevented us from
seeing.  When patiently entreated, the least of creatures adds 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 Labyrinth
Spider (_Agelena labyrinthica_, CLERCK.).  Not a hedge but shelters a few
at its foot, amidst grass, in quiet, sunny nooks.  In the open country
and especially in hilly places laid bare by the wood-man's axe, the
favourite sites are tufts of bracken, rock-rose, lavender, everlasting
and rosemary cropped close by the teeth of the flocks.  This is where I
resort, as the isolation and kindliness of the supports lend themselves
to proceedings which might not be tolerated by 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 to slake the thirst
that will not be slow in coming.  They lend me their good eyes and supple
limbs.  The expedition promises to be fruitful.

We soon discover high silk buildings, betrayed at a distance by the
glittering threads which the dawn has converted into dewy rosaries.  The
children are wonderstruck at those glorious chandeliers, so much so that
they forget their oranges for a moment.  Nor am I, on my part,
indifferent.  A splendid spectacle indeed is that of our Spider's
labyrinth, heavy with the tears of the night and lit up 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 the dew.  Now is
the moment to inspect the webs.  Here is one spreading its sheet over a
large cluster of rock-roses; it is the size of a handkerchief.  A
profusion of guy-ropes, attached to any chance projection, moor it to the
brushwood.  There is not a twig but supplies a contact-point.  Entwined
on every side, surrounded and surmounted, the bush disappears from view,
veiled in white muslin.

The web is flat at the edges, as far as the unevenness of the support
permits, and gradually hollows into a crater, not unlike the bell of a
hunting-horn.  The central portion is a cone-shaped gulf, a funnel whose
neck, narrowing by degrees, dives perpendicularly into the leafy thicket
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 at our
presence.  She is grey, modestly adorned on the thorax with two black
ribbons and on the abdomen with two stripes in which white specks
alternate with brown.  At the tip of the belly, two small, mobile
appendages form a sort of tail, a rather curious feature in a Spider.

The crater-shaped web is not of the same structure throughout.  At the
borders, it is a gossamer weft of sparse threads; nearer the centre, the
texture becomes first fine muslin and then satin; lower still, on the
narrower part of the opening, it is a network of roughly lozenged 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 her
investigation-platform.  Every night she goes to it, walks over it,
inspecting her snares, extending her domain and increasing it with new
threads.  The work is done with the silk constantly hanging from the
spinnerets and constantly extracted as the animal moves about.  The neck
of the funnel, being more often walked upon than the rest of the
dwelling, is therefore provided with a thicker upholstery.  Beyond it are
the slopes of the crater, which are also much-frequented regions.  Spokes
of some regularity fix the diameter of the mouth; a swaying walk and the
guiding aid of the caudal appendages have laid lozengy meshes across
these spokes.  This part has been strengthened by the nightly rounds of
inspection.  Lastly come the less-visited expanses, which consequently
have a thinner carpet.

At the bottom of the passage dipping into the brushwood, we might expect
to find a secret cabin, a wadded cell where the Spider would take refuge
in her hours of leisure.  The reality is something entirely 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 capture
the 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 risk of
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.  If
practicable, squeeze the bottom of the tuft, containing the neck of the
funnel, with both hands.  That is enough; the animal is caught.  Feeling
its retreat cut off, it readily darts into the paper bag held out 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 demoralized by contusions.

The surface of the crater is not exactly a snare.  It is just possible
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.  What is 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 has her no less
treacherous labyrinth.

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

We have here nothing similar to the lime-threads used by the Garden
Spiders.  The threads are not sticky; they act only by their confused
multitude.  Would you care to see the trap at work?  Throw a small Locust
into the rigging.  Unable to obtain a steady foothold on that shaky
support, he flounders about; and the more he struggles the more he
entangles his shackles.  The Spider, spying on the threshold of her
abyss, lets him have his way.  She does not run up the shrouds of the
mast-work to seize the desperate prisoner; she waits until his bonds of
threads, twisted backwards and forwards, make him 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 rather than tied
up; it is merely bits of broken thread that he is trailing from his legs.
The bold assailant does not mind.  Without troubling, like the Epeirae,
to bury her capture under a paralysing winding-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 that this
place is more vulnerable than any other thin-skinned part, but probably
because it has a better flavour.  The different webs which I inspect to
study the food in the larder show me, among other joints, various Flies
and small Butterflies and carcasses of almost-untouched Locusts, 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's shop.  In my urchin-days, days free
from prejudices in regard to what 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 the Crayfish.

The rigging-builder, therefore, to whom we have just thrown a Locust
attacks the prey at the lower end of a thigh.  The bite is a lingering
one: 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 the prey
becomes an empty hulk without losing its outline.

We have seen that Garden Spiders feed in a similar way, bleeding their
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 a dessert for the
teeth to toy with.  The Labyrinth Spider knows nothing of the diversions
of the table; she flings the drained remnants out of her web, without
chewing them.  Although it lasts long, the meal is eaten in perfect
safety.  From the first bite, the Locust becomes a lifeless thing; the
Spider's poison has settled him.

The labyrinth is greatly inferior, as a work of art, to that advanced
geometrical contrivance, the Garden Spider's net; and, in spite of 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 must have her own
principles of beauty and accuracy.  As it is, the prettily-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; she
abandons her web in excellent condition; she does not return to it.  Whoso
will can take possession of the house.  The hour has come to found the
family-establishment.  But where?  The Spider knows right well; I am in
the dark.  Mornings are spent in fruitless searches.  In vain I ransack
the bushes that carry the webs: I never find aught that realizes my
hopes.

I learn the secret at last.  I chance upon a web which, though deserted,
is not yet dilapidated, proving that it has been but lately quitted.
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 from the eye.  It carries an
authentic certificate of its origin, for the mother invariably occupies
it.

By this method of investigation, far from the labyrinth-trap, I become
the 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 with silk threads.
Under this rude covering is a pouch of fine texture containing the egg-
casket, all in very bad condition, because of the inevitable tears
incurred in its extrication from the brushwood.  No, I shall not be able
to judge of the artist's capacity by these rags and tatters.

The insect, in its buildings, has its own architectural rules, rules as
unchangeable as anatomical peculiarities.  Each group builds according to
the same set of principles, conforming to the laws of a very elementary
system of aesthetics; but often circumstances beyond the architect's
control--the space at her disposal, the unevenness of the site, the
nature of the material and other accidental causes--interfere with the
worker's plans and disturb the structure.  Then virtual regularity is
translated into actual chaos; order degenerates into disorder.

We might discover an interesting subject of research in the type adopted
by each species when the work is accomplished without hindrances.  The
Banded Epeira weaves the wallet of her eggs in the open, on a slim branch
that does not get in her way; and her work is a superbly artistic jar.
The Silky Epeira also has all the elbow-room she needs; and her
paraboloid is not without elegance.  Can the Labyrinth Spider, that other
spinstress of accomplished merit, be ignorant of the precepts of 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.  Toiling in 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 her to
labour when free from all impediment: she will then--I am convinced of it
beforehand--apply her talents without constraint and show herself an
adept in the building of graceful nests.

As laying-time approaches, towards the middle of August, I instal half-a-
dozen Labyrinth Spiders in large wire-gauze cages, each standing in an
earthen pan filled with sand.  A sprig of thyme, planted in the centre,
will furnish supports for the structure, together with the 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 mother were minded to employ
them as a covering.  By way of provision, Locusts, every day.  They are
readily accepted, provided they be tender and not too large.

The experiment works perfectly.  August is hardly over before I am in
possession of six nests, magnificent in shape and of a dazzling
whiteness.  The latitude of the workshop has enabled the spinstress to
follow the inspiration of her instinct without serious obstacles; and the
result is a masterpiece of symmetry and elegance, if we allow for a few
angularities demanded by the suspension-points.

It is an oval of exquisite white muslin, a diaphanous abode wherein the
mother must make a long stay to watch over the brood.  The size is nearly
that of a Hen's egg.  The cabin is open at either end.  The
front-entrance broadens into a gallery; the back-entrance tapers 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 here on the look-out for the
Locust, whom she consumes outside, taking care not to soil the spotless
sanctuary with corpses.

The structure of the nest is not without a certain similarity to that of
the home occupied during the hunting-season.  The passage at the back
represents the funnel-neck, that ran almost down to the ground and
afforded an outlet for flight in case of grave danger.  The one in front,
expanding into a mouth kept wide open by cords stretched backwards and
forwards, recalls the yawning gulf into which the victims used to fall.
Every part of the old dwelling is repeated: even the 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 the passers-by are
caught.  Each species, in this way, possesses a primary architectural
model which is followed as a whole, in spite of altered conditions.  The
animal knows its trade thoroughly, but it does not know and will never
know aught else, being incapable of originality.

Now this palace of silk, when all is said, is nothing more than a guard-
house.  Behind the soft, milky opalescence of the wall glimmers the egg-
tabernacle, with its form vaguely suggesting the star of some order of
knighthood.  It is a large pocket, of a splendid dead-white, isolated on
every side by radiating pillars which keep it motionless in the centre of
the tapestry.  These pillars are about ten in number and are slender in
the middle, expanding at one end into a conical capital and at the other
into a base of the same shape.  They face one another and mark the
position of the vaulted corridors which allow free movement in every
direction around the central chamber.  The mother walks gravely to and
fro under the arches of her cloisters, she stops first here, then there;
she makes a lengthy auscultation of the egg-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 which we
brought from the fields.  Apart from its pillars, the egg-pocket is an
inverted conoid, reminding us of the work of the Silky Epeira.  Its
material is rather stout; my pincers, pulling at it, do not tear it
without difficulty.  Inside the bag there is nothing but an extremely
fine, white wadding and, lastly, the eggs, numbering about a hundred and
comparatively large, for they measure a millimetre and a half. {37}  They
are very pale amber-yellow beads, which do not stick together and which
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 falling victims
dropped, her labyrinth in which the flight of the Midges was cut short;
she leaves intact the apparatus that enabled her to live at her ease.
Thoughtful of her natural duties, she goes to found another 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 neighbourhood of
the present home and to continue her hunting with the excellent snare at
her disposal?  The watching of the nest and the easy acquisition of
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 visible
from afar, owing to their whiteness and the height whereat they are
placed.  Their scintillation in the sun, in frequented paths, attracts
Mosquitoes and Butterflies, like the lamps in our rooms and the fowler's
looking-glass.  Whoso comes to look at the bright thing too closely dies
the victim of his curiosity.  There is nothing better for playing upon
the folly of the passer-by, but also nothing more dangerous to the safety
of the family.

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

The Banded Epeira, trusting to the strength of her stuff, fixes her nest
in the sight of all, hangs it on the brushwood, taking no precautions
whatever 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 _Cryptus_ who, as a grub, had fed on Spiders' eggs.  Nothing but
empty shells was 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 advent of the
pickwallet; she provides for it and, to shield herself against it as far
as possible, chooses a hiding-place outside her dwelling, far removed
from the tell-tale web.  When she feels her ovaries ripen, she shifts her
quarters; she goes off at night to explore the neighbourhood and seek a
less dangerous refuge.  The points selected are, by preference, the low
brambles dragging along the ground, keeping their dense verdure during
the winter and crammed with dead leaves from the oaks hard by.  Rosemary-
tufts, which gain in thickness what they lose in height on the
unfostering rock, suit her particularly.  This is where I usually find
her nest, not without long seeking, so well is it hidden.

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

In the case of the Labyrinth Spider, the protection of the brood is
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 the brushwood, 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 Crab Spider
builds, above her lofty nest, a rudimentary watch-tower where she stays
permanently, greatly emaciated, flattened into a sort of wrinkled shell
through the emptying of her ovaries and the total absence of food.  And
this mere shred, hardly more than a skin that persists in living without
eating, stoutly defends her egg-sack, shows fight at the approach of any
tramp.  She does not make up her mind to die until the little ones are
gone.

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

Remember the magnificent oval guard-room, running into a vestibule at
either end; the egg-chamber slung in the centre and isolated on every
side by half a score of pillars; the front-hall expanding into a wide
mouth and surmounted by a network of taut threads forming a trap.  The
semi-transparency of the walls allows us to see the Spider engaged in her
household affairs.  Her cloister of vaulted passages enables her to
proceed to any point of the star-shaped pouch containing the eggs.
Indefatigable in her rounds, she stops here and there; she fondly 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 to enquire what is happening.
Will this vigilance frighten off the Ichneumon and other lovers of
omelettes?  Perhaps so.  But, though this danger be averted, others will
come when the mother is no longer there.

Her attentive watch does not make her overlook her meals.  One of the
Locusts whereof I renew the supply at intervals in the cages is caught in
the cords of the great entrance-hall.  The Spider arrives 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, according to 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 boredom of the
watch for a brief while; they are substantial repasts, which require
several sittings.  Such an appetite astonishes me, after I have seen the
Crab Spider, that no less ardent watcher, refuse the Bees whom I give her
and allow herself to die of inanition.  Can this other mother have so
great a need as that to eat?  Yes, certainly she has; and for an
imperative reason.

At the beginning of her work, she spent a large amount of silk, perhaps
all that her reserves contained; for the double dwelling--for herself and
for her offspring--is a huge edifice, exceedingly costly in materials;
and yet, for nearly another month, I see her adding layer upon layer both
to the wall of the large cabin and to that of the central chamber, so
much so that the texture, which at first was translucent gauze, 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 and when she
empties them by spinning.  Food is the means whereby she keeps the
inexhaustible factory going.

A month passes and, about the middle of September, the little ones hatch,
but without leaving their tabernacle, where they are to spend the winter
packed in soft wadding.  The mother continues to watch and spin,
lessening her activity from day to day.  She recruits herself with a
Locust at longer intervals; she sometimes scorns those whom 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 leisurely
inspection-rounds, happy at hearing the new-born Spiders swarming in the
wallet.  At length, when October ends, she clutches her offspring's
nursery and dies withered.  She has done all that maternal devotion can
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 floating thread and
weave their first attempts at a labyrinth on the tufts of thyme.

Accurate in structure and neat in silk-work though they be, the nests of
the caged captives do not tell us everything; we must go back to what
happens in the fields, with their complicated conditions.  Towards the
end of December, I again set out in search, aided by all my youthful
collaborators.  We inspect the stunted rosemaries along the edge of a
path sheltered by a rocky, wooded slope; we lift the branches that 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 the
assaults of the weather!  It needs the eyes of faith to see in these
ruins the equivalent of the edifices built inside my cages.  Fastened to
the creeping branch, the unsightly bundle lies on the sand heaped 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 projecting and feel a certain
resistance when separating the parts of the bundle, we might take the
thing for a casual accumulation, the work of the rain and 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 coating of
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
immaculate white.  The dirt from the damp ground has not penetrated to
this dwelling 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 of earthy matters,
as though the muddy rain-water had been allowed to soak through.  Put
aside that idea, says the satin wall, which itself is perfectly clean
inside.  It is most certainly the mother's doing, a deliberate piece of
work, executed with minute care.  The grains of sand are stuck together
with a cement of silk; and the whole resists the pressure of the fingers.

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

To sum up, when working in the natural state, the Labyrinth Spider builds
around the eggs, between two sheets of satin, a wall composed of a great
deal of sand and a little silk.  To stop the Ichneumon's probe and the
teeth of the other ravagers, the best thing that occurred to her was this
hoarding which combines the hardness of flint with the softness of
muslin.

This means of defence seems to be pretty frequent among Spiders.  Our own
big House Spider, _Tegenaria domestica_, encloses her eggs in a globule
strengthened with a rind of silk and of crumbly wreckage from the mortar
of the walls.  Other species, living in the open under stones, work in
the same way.  They wrap their eggs in a mineral shell held together with
silk.  The same fears have inspired the same protective methods.

Then how comes it that, of the five mothers reared in my cages, not one
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 across nests without any
mineral casing.  These incomplete nests were placed 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 concrete of our
buildings is obtained by the simultaneous manipulation of gravel and
mortar.  In the same way, the Spider mixes the cement of the silk with
the grains of sand; the spinnerets never cease working, while the legs
fling under the adhesive spray the solid materials collected in the
immediate neighbourhood.  The operation would be impossible if, after
cementing each grain of sand, it were necessary to stop the work of the
spinnerets and go to a distance to fetch further stony elements.  Those
materials have to be right under her legs; otherwise the Spider does
without and continues her work just the same.

In my cages, the sand is too far off.  To obtain it, the Spider would
have to leave the top of the dome, where the nest is being built on 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 case of
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, when the 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,
towards perfection in the mason's art?  No inference is permissible in
either direction.  The Labyrinth Spider has simply taught us that
instinct possesses resources which are employed or left latent according
to the conditions of the moment.  Place sand under her legs and the
spinstress will knead concrete; refuse her that sand, or put 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 scope proves 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 and its star-like tabernacle, in favour of
the Banded Epeira's pear-shaped gourd.




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 which saves us
from speedy oblivion under the mallows and rockets is no contemptible
advantage.  Most men disappear without leaving an echo to repeat their
name; they lie buried in forgetfulness, the worst of graves.

Others, among the naturalists, benefit by the designation given to this
or that object in life's treasure-house: it is the skiff wherein they
keep afloat for a brief while.  A patch of lichen on the bark of an old
tree, a blade of grass, a puny beastie: any one of these hands down a
man's name to posterity as effectively as a new comet.  For all its
abuses, this manner of honouring the departed is eminently respectable.
If we would carve an epitaph of some duration, what could we find better
than a Beetle's wing-case, a Snail's shell or a Spider's web?  Granite is
worth none of them.  Entrusted to the hard stone, an inscription becomes
obliterated; 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 that require
cataloguing?  Not entirely.  A mythological name came to his mind, one
which sounded well and which, moreover, was not out of place in
designating a spinstress.  The Clotho of antiquity is the youngest of the
three Fates; she holds the distaff whence our destinies are spun, a
distaff wound with plenty of rough flocks, just a 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 of the
naturalists is, above all, a highly talented spinstress; and this is the
reason why she is called after the distaff-bearing deity of the infernal
regions.  It is a pity that the analogy extends no further.  The
mythological Clotho, niggardly with her silk and lavish with her coarse
flocks, spins us a harsh existence; the eight-legged Clotho uses naught
but exquisite silk.  She works for herself; the other works for us, who
are hardly worth the trouble.

Would we make her acquaintance?  On the rocky slopes in the oliveland,
scorched and blistered by the sun, turn over the flat stones, those of a
fair size; search, above all, the piles which the shepherds set up for a
seat whence to watch the sheep browsing amongst the lavender below.  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 have lifted, an
edifice of a weather-beaten aspect, shaped like an over-turned cupola and
about the size of half a tangerine orange.  The outside is 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, the
points of which spread and are fixed to the stone.  In between these
straps is the same number of spacious inverted arches.  The whole
represents the Ishmaelite's camel-hair tent, but upside down.  A flat
roof, stretched between the straps, closes the top of the dwelling.

Then where is the entrance?  All the arches of the edge open upon the
roof; not one leads to the interior.  The eye seeks in vain; there is
nothing to point to a passage between the inside and the outside.  Yet
the owner of the house must go out from time to 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 the place
rigorously closed.  But one of the scallops, differing in no wise from
the others in appearance, if cleverly coaxed, opens at the 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 to say, she joins and
fastens the two leaves of the door with a little silk.

The Mason Mygale is no safer in her burrow, with its lid
undistinguishable from 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
touch of her claw, enters and disappears.  The door closes of itself and
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 her
defensive machinery, she is incomparably ahead of the Mygale in the
matter of domestic comfort.  Let us open her cabin.  What luxury!  We are
taught how a Sybarite of old was unable to rest, owing to the presence of
a crumpled rose-leaf in his bed.  The Clotho is quite as fastidious.  Her
couch is more delicate than swan's-down and whiter than the fleece of the
clouds where brood the summer storms.  It is the ideal blanket.  Above is
a canopy or tester of equal softness.  Between the two nestles the
Spider, short-legged, clad in sombre garments, with five yellow favours
on her back.

Rest in this exquisite retreat demands perfect stability, especially on
gusty days, when sharp draughts penetrate beneath the stone.  This
condition is admirably fulfilled.  Take a careful look at the habitation.
The arches that gird the roof with a balustrade and 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 diverging threads that
creep along the stone and cling to it throughout their length, which
spreads afar.  I have measured some fully nine inches long.  These are so
many cables; they represent the ropes and pegs that hold the Arab's tent
in position.  With such supports as these, so numerous and so
methodically arranged, the hammock cannot be torn from its bearings save
by the intervention of brutal methods with which the Spider need not
concern herself, so seldom do they occur.

Another detail attracts our attention: whereas the interior of the house
is exquisitely clean, the outside is covered with dirt, bits of earth,
chips of rotten wood, little pieces of gravel.  Often there are worse
things still: the exterior of the tent becomes a charnel-house.  Here,
hung up or embedded, are the dry carcasses of Opatra, Asidae and other
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 among the smallest.

These relics are obviously, for the most part, table-leavings, broken
victuals.  Unversed in the trapper's art, the Clotho courses her 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 hung to the
silken wall, as though the Spider wished to make a bogey-house of her
home.  But this cannot be her aim.  To act like the ogre who hangs his
victims from the castle battlements is the worst way to disarm suspicion
in the passers-by whom you are lying in wait to capture.

There are other reasons which increase our doubts.  The shells hung up
are most often empty; but there are also some occupied by the Snail,
alive and untouched.  What can the Clotho do with a _Pupa cinerea_, a
_Pupa quadridens_ and other narrow spirals wherein the animal retreats to
an inaccessible depth?  The Spider is incapable of breaking the
calcareous shell or of getting at the hermit through the opening.  Then
why should she collect those prizes, whose slimy flesh is probably not to
her taste?  We begin to suspect a simple question of ballast and balance.
The House Spider, or _Tegenaria domestica_, prevents her web, spun in a
corner of the wall, from losing its shape at the least breath of air, by
loading it with crumbling plaster and allowing tiny fragments of mortar
to accumulate.  Are we 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 obliged to
take the heavy flagstone, on which the dwelling is built, away with us.  A
very simple operation suffices.  I loosen the fastenings with my pocket-
knife.  The Spider has such stay-at-home ways that she very rarely makes
off.  Besides, I use the utmost discretion in my rape of the house.  And
so I carry away the building, together with its owner, in a paper bag.

The flat stones, which are too heavy to move and which would occupy too
much room upon my table, are replaced either by deal disks, which once
formed part of cheese-boxes, or by round pieces of cardboard.  I arrange
each silken hammock under one of these by itself, fastening the angular
projections, one by one, with strips of gummed paper.  The whole stands
on three short pillars and gives a very fair imitation of the underrock
shelter in the form of a small dolmen.  Throughout this operation, if you
are careful to avoid shocks and jolts, the Spider remains 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 cabins swung
from the ceilings of the deal or cardboard dolmens, there be one that is
all dilapidated, that was seriously knocked out of shape at the time of
removal, the Spider abandons it during the night and instals herself
elsewhere, sometimes even on the trellis-work of the wire cage.

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

Well, what has the Spider done to keep the gossamer stretched, to steady
it and to make it retain its greatest capacity?  Exactly what our static
treatises would advise her to do: she has ballasted her structure, she
has done her best to lower its centre of gravity.  From the convex
surface of the pocket hang long chaplets of grains of sand strung
together with slender silken cords.  To these sandy stalactites, which
form a bushy beard, are added a few heavy lumps hung separately and lower
down, at the end of a thread.  The whole is a 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 grow into a thick
blanket capable of partly retaining, by its own weight, the requisite
curve and capacity.  The Spider now abandons the stalactites of sand,
which were used to keep the original pocket stretched, and confines
herself to dumping down on her abode any more or less heavy object,
mainly corpses of insects, because she need not look for these and finds
them ready to hand after each meal.  They are weights, not trophies; they
take the place of materials that must otherwise be collected 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 objects hanging 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 Spider go back
to the sandy stalactites, as a ready means of restoring stability?  This
is easily ascertained.  In my hamlets under wire, I select a fair-sized
cabin.  I strip the exterior, carefully removing any foreign 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 with hanging strings of sand.  In
a few nights, the silk bag bristles with a long, thick beard of
stalactites, a curious piece of work, excellently adapted to maintain the
web in an unvaried curve.  Even so are the cables of a suspension-bridge
steadied by the weight of the superstructure.

Later, as the Spider goes on feeding, the remains of the victuals are
embedded in the wall, the sand is shaken and gradually drops away and the
home resumes its charnel-house appearance.  This brings us to the same
conclusion as before: the Clotho knows her statics; by means of
additional weights, she is able to lower the centre of gravity and thus
to give her dwelling the proper equilibrium and capacity.

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

If I push open the door of the cabin, invariably I find the Spider lying
motionless, as though in endless meditation.  It needs the teasing of a
straw to rouse her from her apathy.  It needs the prick of hunger to
bring her out of doors; and, as she is extremely temperate, her
appearances outside are few and far between.  During three years of
assiduous observation, in the privacy of my study, I have 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 the evening,
taking the air on the flat roof of her house, where she was doubtless
waiting for the game to pass.  Startled by the light of my candle, the
lover of darkness at once returned indoors, refusing to reveal any of her
secrets.  Only, next day, there was one more corpse hanging from the wall
of the cabin, a proof that the chase was successfully 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 precious historical
documents, but hides her actions, especially the laying, which I estimate
approximately to take place in October.  The sum total of the eggs is
divided into five or six small, flat, lentiform pockets, which, taken
together, occupy the greater part of the maternal home.  These capsules
have each their own partition-wall of superb white satin, but they are so
closely soldered, both together and to the floor of the house, that it is
impossible to part them without tearing them, impossible, therefore, to
obtain them separately.  The eggs in all amount to about a hundred.

The mother sits upon the heap of pockets with the same devotion as a
brooding hen.  Maternity has not withered her.  Although decreased in
bulk, she retains an excellent look of health; her round belly and her
well-stretched skin tell us from the first that her part is not yet
wholly played.

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

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

The elder Clotho remains behind, careless of this emigration which leaves
her alone.  She is far from being faded indeed, she looks younger than
ever.  Her fresh colour, her robust appearance suggest great length of
life, capable of producing a second family.  On this 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 the result.  These abandoned
their dwellings after the departure of their young; and each went to
weave a new one for herself on the wire net-work of the cage.

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

The old cabin, comfortably wadded though it be, possesses serious
disadvantages: it is littered with the ruins of the children's nurseries.
These ruins are so close-welded to the rest of the home that my forceps
cannot extract them without difficulty; and to remove them would be an
exhausting business for the Clotho and possibly beyond her strength.  It
is a case of the resistance of Gordian knots, which not even the very
spinstress who fastened them is capable of untying.  The encumbering
litter, therefore, will remain.

If the Spider were to stay alone, the reduction of space, when all is
said, would hardly matter to her: she wants so little room, merely enough
to move in!  Besides, when you have spent seven or eight months in the
cramping presence of those bedchambers, what can be the reason of a
sudden need for greater space?  I see but one: the Spider requires a
roomy habitation, not for herself--she is satisfied with the smallest
den--but for a second family.  Where is she to place the pockets of eggs,
if the ruins of the previous laying remain in the way?  A new brood
requires a new home.  That, no doubt, is why, feeling that her ovaries
are not yet dried up, the Spider 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 a long
upbringing did not allow me to pursue the question and definitely to
settle the matter of the repeated layings and the longevity of the
Clotho, as I did in that of the Lycosa.

Before taking leave of this Spider, let us glance at a curious problem
which has already been set by the Lycosa's offspring.  When carried for
seven months on the mother's back, they keep in training as agile
gymnasts without taking any nourishment.  It is a familiar exercise for
them, after a fall, which frequently occurs, to scramble up 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 confront us
with the same riddle: they move, yet do not eat.  At any period of the
nursery stage, even in the heart of winter, on the bleak days of January,
I tear the pockets of the one and the tabernacle of the other, expecting
to find the swarm of youngsters lying in a state of complete inertia,
numbed by the cold and by lack of food.  Well, the result is quite
different.  The instant their cells are broken open, the anchorites run
out and flee in every direction as nimbly as at the best moments of their
normal liberty.  It is marvellous to see them scampering about.  No brood
of Partridges, stumbled upon by a Dog, scatters more promptly.

Chicks, while still no more than tiny balls of yellow fluff, hasten up at
the mother's call and scurry towards the plate of rice.  Habit has made
us indifferent to the spectacle of those pretty little animal machines,
which work so nimbly and with such precision; we pay no attention, so
simple does it all appear to us.  Science examines and 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, which is converted
into energy.'

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

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

Like the Lycosa, she lives with her family; but the Clotho is separated
from them by the walls of the cells in which the little ones are
hermetically enclosed.  In this condition, the transmission of solid
nourishment becomes impossible.  Should any one entertain a theory of
nutritive humours cast up by the mother and filtering through the
partitions at which the prisoners might come and drink, the Labyrinth
Spider would at once dispel the idea.  She dies a few weeks after her
young are hatched; and the children, still locked in their satin
bed-chamber for 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 we have seen the
Epeirae, before beginning a new web, swallow the ruins of the old.  But
the explanation cannot be accepted, as we learn from the Lycosa, whose
family boasts no silky screen.  In short, it is certain that the young,
of whatever species, take absolutely no nourishment.

Lastly, we wonder whether they may possess within themselves reserves
that come from the egg, fatty or other matters the gradual combustion of
which would be transformed into mechanical force.  If the expenditure of
energy were of but short duration, a few hours or a few days, we could
gladly welcome this idea of a motor viaticum, the attribute of every
creature born into the world.  The chick possesses it in a high degree:
it is steady on its legs, it moves for a little while with 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 extinct and the bird
dies.  How would the chick fare if it were expected, for seven or eight
months without stopping, to stand on its feet, to run about, to flee in
the face of danger?  Where would it stow the necessary reserves for such
an amount of work?

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

We must needs, therefore, appeal to the immaterial, in particular to heat-
rays coming from the outside and converted into movement by the organism.
This is nutrition of energy reduced to its simplest expression: the
motive heat, instead of being extracted from the food, is utilized
direct, as supplied by the sun, which is the seat of all life.  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 suggested by the Spider
into an established truth and a fundamental theory of physiology.




APPENDIX: THE GEOMETRY OF THE EPEIRA'S WEB


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

What am I to do?  To suppress this chapter were to leave out the most
remarkable instance of Spider industry; to treat it as it should be
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 middle
course, avoiding both abstruse truths and complete ignorance.

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

We shall also notice that, in each sector, the various chords, the
elements of the spiral windings, are parallel to one another and
gradually draw closer together as they near the centre.  With the two
radiating lines that frame them they form obtuse angles on one side and
acute angles 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 as the
acute, do not alter in value, from one sector to another, at any rate so
far as the conscientious eye can judge.  Taken as a whole, therefore, the
rope-latticed edifice consists of a series of cross-bars intersecting the
several radiating lines obliquely at angles of equal value.

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 'radii vectores'
radiating from a centre called the 'Pole.'  The Epeira's construction,
therefore, is a series of chords joining the 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 indefinitely and change this
polygonal line into a curve.

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

The logarithmic spiral describes an endless number of circuits around its
pole, to which it constantly draws nearer without ever being able to
reach it.  This central point is indefinitely inaccessible at each
approaching turn.  It is obvious that this property is beyond our sensory
scope.  Even with the help of the best philosophical instruments, our
sight could not follow its interminable windings and would soon abandon
the attempt to divide the invisible.  It is a volute to which the brain
conceives no limits.  The trained mind, alone, more discerning than our
retina, sees clearly that which defies the perceptive faculties of the
eye.

The Epeira complies to the best of her ability with this law of the
endless volute.  The spiral revolutions come closer together as they
approach the pole.  At a given distance, they stop abruptly; but, at this
point, the auxiliary spiral, which is not destroyed in the central
region, takes up the thread; and we see it, not without some surprise,
draw nearer to the pole in ever-narrowing and scarcely perceptible
circles.  There is not, of course, absolute mathematical accuracy, but a
very close approximation to that accuracy.  The Epeira winds nearer and
nearer round her pole, so far as her equipment, which, like our own, is
defective, will allow her.  One would believe her to be thoroughly versed
in the laws of the spiral.

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

Jacques Bernouilli, {42} to whom geometry owes this magnificent theorem,
had engraved on his tomb, as one of his proudest titles to fame, the
generating spiral and its double, begotten of the unwinding of the
thread.  An inscription proclaimed, '_Eadem mutata resurgo_: I rise again
like unto myself.'  Geometry would find it difficult to better this
splendid 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 the thorns
and brambles that cover us with oblivion, recognized it, among the ruins,
by the geometrical figure engraved upon the stone: the cylinder
circumscribing the sphere.  Archimedes, in fact, was the first to know
the approximate relation of circumference to diameter; from it he deduced
the perimeter and surface of the circle, as well as the surface and
volume of the sphere.  He showed that the surface and volume of the last-
named equal two-thirds of the surface and volume of the circumscribing
cylinder.  Disdaining all pompous inscription, the learned Syracusan
honoured himself with his theorem as his sole epitaph.  The geometrical
figure proclaimed the individual's name as plainly as would any
alphabetical characters.

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

Now is this logarithmic spiral, with its curious properties, merely a
conception of the geometers, combining number and extent, at will, so as
to imagine a tenebrous abyss wherein to practise their analytical methods
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 construction
frequently employed in animal architecture.  The Mollusc, in particular,
never rolls the winding ramp of the shell without reference to the
scientific curve.  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 venerable relics
of what was once the highest expression of living things, at the time
when the solid land was taking shape from the oceanic ooze.  Cut and
polished length-wise, the fossil shows a magnificent logarithmic spiral,
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 partitioned
shells, the Nautilus of the Southern Seas, remains faithful to the
ancient design; it has not improved upon its distant predecessors.  It
has altered the position of the siphuncle, has placed it in the centre
instead of leaving it on the back, but it still whirls its spiral
logarithmically as 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 Mollusc
tribe have a monopoly of the scientific curve.  In the stagnant waters of
our grassy ditches, the flat shells, the humble Planorbes, sometimes no
bigger than a duckweed, vie with the Ammonite and the Nautilus in matters
of higher geometry.  At least one of them, _Planorbis vortex_, for
example, is a marvel of logarithmic whorls.

In the long-shaped shells, the structure becomes more complex, though
remaining subject to the same fundamental laws.  I have before my 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 edifice is
superb, graced with its own simplicity alone.  I count a score of whorls
which gradually decrease until they vanish in the delicate point.  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
practised in geometric measurements, I find that the spiral groove
intersects this generating line at an angle of unvarying value.

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

Better still.  Let us imagine a plane perpendicular to the aids of 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 the plane and will describe a
logarithmic spiral within it.  It is, in a more complicated degree, a
variant of Bernouilli's '_Eadem mutata resurgo_:' the logarithmic conic
curve becomes a logarithmic plane curve.

A similar geometry is found in the other shells with elongated cones,
Turritellae, Spindle-shells, Cerithia, as well as in the shells with
flattened cones, Trochidae, Turbines.  The spherical shells, those
whirled into a volute, are no exception to this rule.  All, down to the
common Snail-shell, are constructed according to logarithmic laws.  The
famous spiral of the geometers is the general plan followed by the
Mollusc rolling its stone sheath.

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

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

The Mollusc has years wherein to construct its spiral and it uses the
utmost finish in the whirling process.  The Epeira, to spread her net,
has but an hour's sitting at the most, wherefore the speed at which she
works compels her to rest content with a simpler production.  She
shortens the task by confining herself to a skeleton of the curve which
the other describes to perfection.

The Epeira, therefore, is versed in the geometric secrets of the Ammonite
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 of the Worm that ambitiously aspires
to become a Mollusc.  The animal must needs carry within itself a virtual
diagram of its spiral.  Accident, however fruitful in surprises we may
presume it to be, can never have taught it the higher geometry wherein
our own intelligence at once goes astray, without a strict preliminary
training.

Are we to recognize a mere effect of organic structure in the Epeira's
art?  We readily think of the legs, which, endowed with a very varying
power of extension, might serve as compasses.  More or less bent, more or
less outstretched, they would mechanically determine the angle whereat
the spiral shall intersect the radius; they would maintain the parallel
of the chords in each sector.

Certain objections arise to affirm that, in this instance, the tool is
not the sole regulator of the work.  Were the arrangement of the thread
determined by the length of the legs, we should find the spiral volutes
separated more widely from one another in proportion to the greater
length of implement in the spinstress.  We see this in the Banded Epeira
and the Silky Epeira.  The first has longer limbs 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.  The Angular
Epeira, the Paletinted Epeira and the Cross Spider, all three more or
less short-limbed, rival the Banded Epeira in the spacing of their lime-
snares.  The last two even dispose them with greater intervening
distances.

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

Here we have, following one after the other merely by a sudden alteration
of the machine, two volutes of an entirely different order as regards
direction, the number of whorls and intersection.  Both of them are
logarithmic spirals.  I see no mechanism of the legs, be they long 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 parallel by
means of the eye or otherwise?  I am inclined to think that there 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 flower is able to control
the arrangement of its verticils.  The Epeira practises higher geometry
without knowing or caring.  The thing works of itself and takes its
impetus from an instinct imposed upon creation from the start.

The stone thrown by the hand returns to earth describing a certain curve;
the dead leaf torn and wafted away by a breath of wind makes its 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 moving body to regulate the
fall; nevertheless, the descent takes place according to a scientific
trajectory, the 'parabola,' of which the section of a cone by a plane
furnished the prototype to the geometer's speculations.  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 it rolling
on an indefinite straight line and ask what course does the focus of this
curve follow.  The answer comes: The focus of the parabola describes a
'catenary,' a line very simple in shape, but endowed with an algebraic
symbol that has to resort to a kind of cabalistic number at variance with
any sort of numeration, so much so that the unit refuses to express it,
however much we subdivide the unit.  It is called the number _e_.  Its
value is represented by the 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 terms of this
series, which has no limit, because the series of natural numerals itself
has none, he would find:

   e=2.7182818...

With this weird number are we now stationed within the strictly defined
realm of the imagination?  Not at all: the catenary appears actually
every time that weight and flexibility act in concert.  The name is given
to the curve formed by a chain suspended by two of its points which are
not placed on a vertical line.  It is the shape taken by a flexible cord
when held at each end and relaxed; it is the line that governs the shape
of a sail bellying in the wind; it is the curve of the nanny-goat's milk-
bag when she returns from filling her trailing udder.  And all this
answers to the number e.

What a quantity of abstruse science for a bit of string!  Let us not be
surprised.  A pellet of shot swinging at the end of a thread, a drop of
dew trickling down a straw, a splash of water rippling under the kisses
of the air, a mere trifle, after all, requires a titanic scaffolding 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 smallest
actualities!  Will it never be given to us to probe reality in a simpler
fashion?  Will our intelligence be able one day to dispense with the
heavy arsenal of formulae?  Why not?

Here we have the abracadabric number _e_ reappearing, inscribed on a
Spider's thread.  Let us examine, on a misty morning, the meshwork that
has been constructed during the night.  Owing to their hygrometrical
nature, the sticky threads are laden with tiny drops, and, bending under
the burden, have become so many catenaries, so many chaplets of limpid
gems, graceful chaplets arranged in exquisite order and following the
curve of a swing.  If the sun pierce the mist, the whole lights up with
iridescent fires and becomes a resplendent cluster of diamonds.  The
number _e_ is in its glory.

Geometry, that is to say, the science of harmony in space, presides over
everything.  We find it in the arrangement of the scales of a fir-cone,
as in the arrangement of an Epeira's limy web; we find it in the spiral
of a Snail-shell, in the chaplet of a Spider's thread, as in the orbit of
a planet; it is everywhere, as perfect in the 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, as an explanation
of the logarithmic curve of the Ammonite and the Epeira, to the Worm
screwing up the tip of its tail.  It may not perhaps be in accordance
with latter-day teaching, but it takes a loftier flight.




FOOTNOTES


{1}  A small or moderate-sized spider found among foliage.--Translator's
Note.

{2}  Leon Dufour (1780-1865) was an army surgeon who served with
distinction in several campaigns and subsequently practised as a doctor
in the Landes.  He attained great eminence as a naturalist.--Translator's
Note.

{3}  The Tarantula is a Lycosa, or Wolf-spider.  Fabre's Tarantula, the
Black-bellied Tarantula, is identical with the Narbonne Lycosa, under
which name the description is continued in Chapters iii. to vi., all of
which were written at a considerably later date than the present
chapter.--Translator's Note.

{4}  Giorgio Baglivi (1669-1707), professor of anatomy and medicine at
Rome.--Translator's Note.

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

{6}  Provencal for the bit of waste ground on which the author studies
his insects in the natural state.--Translator's note.

{7}  'Thanks to the Bumble-bee.'

{8}  Like the Dung-beetles.--Translator's Note.

{9}  Like the Solitary Wasps.--Translator's Note.

{10}  Such as the Hairy Ammophila, the Cerceris and the Languedocian
Sphex, Digger-wasps described in other of the author's
essays.--Translator's Note.

{11}  The _desnucador_, the Argentine slaughterman whose methods of
slaying cattle are detailed in the author's essay entitled, The Theory of
Instinct.--Translator's Note.

{12}  A family of Grasshoppers.--Translator's Note.

{13}  A genus of Beetles.--Translator's Note.

{14}  A species of Digger-wasp.--Translator's Note.

{15}  The Cicada is the _Cigale_, an insect akin to the Grasshopper and
found more particularly in the South of France.--Translator's Note.

{16}  The generic title of the work from which these essays are taken is
Entomological Memories, or, Studies relating to the Instinct and Habits
of Insects.--Translator's Note.

{17} A species of Grasshopper.--Translator's Note.

{18}  An insect akin to the Locusts and Crickets, which, when at rest,
adopts an attitude resembling that of prayer.  When attacking, it assumes
what is known as 'the spectral attitude.'  Its forelegs form a sort of
saw-like or barbed harpoons.  Cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by J.
H. Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall: chaps. v. to vii.-- Translator's
Note.

{19}  .39 inch.-- Translator's Note.

{20}  These experiments are described in the author's essay on the Mason
Bees entitled Fragments on Insect Psychology.--Translator's Note.

{21}  A species of Wasp.--Translator's Note.

{22}  In Chap. VIII. of the present volume.--Translator's Note.

{23}  Jules Michelet (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's Note.

{24}  Chapter III. of the present volume.--Translator's Note.

{25}  A species of Dung-beetle.  Cf.  The Life and Love of the Insect, by
J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap.
v.--Translator's Note.

{26}  A species of Beetle.--Translator's Note.

{27}  Cf. Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre, translated by the author of
Mademoiselle Mori: chaps. i. and ii.; The Life and Love of the Insect, by
J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i. to
iv.--Translator's Note.

{28}  Chapter II.--Translator's Note.

{29}  .39 inch.--Translator's Note.

{30}  The Processionaries are Moth-caterpillars that feed on various
leaves and march in file, laying a silken trail as they go.--Translator's
Note.

{31}  The weekly half-holiday in French schools.--Translator's Note.

{32}  Cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by
Bernard Miall: chap. xiv.--Translator's Note.

{33}  Cf. Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre, translated by the author of
Mademoiselle Mori: chap. v.--Translator's Note.

{34}  The Scolia is a Digger-wasp, like the Cerceris and the Sphex, and
feeds her larvae on the grubs of the Cetonia, or Rose-chafer, and the
Oryctes, or Rhinoceros Beetle.  Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect, by
J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap.
xi.--Translator's Note.

{35}  Cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by
Bernard Miall. chap. xiii., in which the name is given, by a printer's
error, as _Philanthus aviporus_.--Translator's Note.

{36}  Or Bird Spiders, known also as the American Tarantula.--Translator's
Note.

{37}  .059 inch.--Translator's Note.

{38}  The Ichneumon-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 live
and develop at the expense of the egg or grub attacked, which degenerates
in consequence.--Translator's Note.

{39}  One of the largest families of Beetles, darkish in colour and
shunning the light.--Translator's Note.

{40}  The Iulus is one of the family of Myriapods, which includes
Centipedes, etc.--Translator's Note.

{41}  A species of Land-snail.--Translator's Note.

{42}  Jacques Bernouilli (1654-1705), professor of mathematics at the
University of Basel from 1687 to the year of his death.  He improved the
differential calculus, solved the isoperimetrical problem and discovered
the properties of the logarithmic spiral.--Translator's Note.




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