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THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER
THE LIFE OF THE FLY
THE MASON-BEES
BRAMBLE-BEES AND OTHERS
THE HUNTING WASPS

THE LIPE-OP THe
SFP IDER

BY
J. HENRI FABRE

TRANSLATED BY
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MatTos, F.Z.S.

WITH A PREFACE BY MAuRICE MAETERLINCK

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1915

CopyriGHT, 1912
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

CONTENTS

PREFACE: THE INSECT’S HOMER, BY

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER
I. THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA

II
III

IV

VI

VII

yur

THE BANDED EPEIRA

THE NARBONNE LYCOSA

THE NARBONNE LYCOSA:

BURROW

THE NARBONNE LYCOSA:

FAMILY

THE NARBONNE LYCOSA:

CLIMBING-INSTINCT
THE SPIDER’S EXODUS

THE CRAB SPIDER . ,
5

.

THE

THE

THE

PAGE

ree

153

171
187

213

Contents

CHAPTER

Ix

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: BUILDING
THE WEB

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: MY NEIGH-
BOUR . : 5 . : e

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE LIME-
SNARE .

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE TELE-
GRAPH-WIRE

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: PAIRING
AND HUNTING

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE QUES-
TION OF PROPERTY

THE LABYRINTH SPIDER .

THE CLOTHO SPIDER .

APPENDIX: THE GEOMETRY OF THE

EPEIRA’S WEB. . .

PAGE

228
248
272
282
296

317
330
360

383

PREFACE

THE INSECT’S HOMER

Q)RANGE and Sérignan, the latter a lit-
tle Provencal village that should be as
widely celebrated as Maillane,* have of
late years rendered honour to a man whose
brow deserves to be girt with a double and ra-
diant crown. But fame—at least that which
is not the true nor the great fame, but her il-
legitimate sister, and which creates more noise
than durable work in the morning and even-
ing papers—fame is often forgetful, negli-
gent, behindhand or unjust; and the crowd is
almost ignorant of the name of J. H. Fabre,
who is one of the most profound and inven-
tive scholars and also one of the purest
writers and, I was going to add, one of the
finest poets of the century that is just past.
*Maillane is the birthplace of Mistral, the Provencal
poet.—Translator’s Note.
7

The Life of the Spider

J. H. Fabre, as some few people know, is
the author of half a score of well-filled vol-
umes in which, under the title of Souvenirs
Entomologiques, he has set down the results
of fifty years of observation, study and exper-
iment on the insects that seem to us the best-
known and the most familiar: different species
of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies,
beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those
vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost
nameless little lives which surround us on
every side and which we contemplate with
eyes that are amused, but already thinking of
other things, when we open our window to
welcome the first hours of spring, or when
we go into the gardens or the fields to bask
in the blue summer days.

2

We take up at random one of these bulky
volumes and naturally expect to find first of
all the very learned and rather dry lists of
names, the very fastidious and exceedingly
quaint specifications of those huge, dusty
graveyards of which all the entomological
treatises that we have read so far seem almost

8

Preface

wholly to consist. We therefore open the
book without zest and without unreasonable
expectations; and forthwith, from between
the open leaves, there rises and unfolds itself,
without hesitation, without interruption and
almost without remission to the end of the
four thousand pages, the most extraordinary
of tragic fairy plays that it is possible for the
human imagination, not to create or to con-
ceive, but to admit and to acclimatize within
itself.

Indeed, there is no question here of the
human imagination. The insect does not be-
long to our world. The other animals, the
plants even, notwithstanding their dumb life
and the great secrets which they cherish, do
not seem wholly foreign to us. In spite of
all, we feel a certain earthly brotherhood in
them. ‘They often surprise and amaze our
intelligence, but do not utterly upset it.
There is something, on the other hand, about
the insect that does not seem to belong to the
habits, the ethics, the psychology of our
globe. One would be inclined to say that the
insect comes from another planet, more mon-
strous, more energetic, more insane, more
atrocious, more infernal than our own. One
would think that it was born of some comet

9

The Life of the Spider

that had lost its course and died demented in
space. In vain does it seize upon life with an
authority, a fecundity unequalled here below;
we cannot accustom ourselves to the idea that
it is a thought of that nature of whom we
fondly believe ourselves to be the privileged
children and probably the ideal to which all
the earth’s efforts tend. Only the infinitely
small disconcerts us still more greatly; but
what, in reality, is the infinitely small other
than an insect which our eyes do not see?
There is, no doubt, in this astonishment and
lack of understanding a certain instinctive
and profound uneasiness inspired by those
existences incomparably better-armed, better-
equipped than our own, by those creatures
made up of a sort of compressed energy and
activity in whom we suspect our most myste-
rious adversaries, our ultimate rivals and,
perhaps, our successors.

3

But it is time, under the conduct of an ad-
mirable guide, to penetrate behind the scenes
of our fairy play and to study at close quarters
the actors and supernumeraries, loathsome or

Io

Preface

magnificent, as the case may be, grotesque or
sinister, heroic or appalling, genial or stupid
and almost always improbable and unintel-
ligible.

And here, to begin with, taking the first
that comes, is one of those individuals, fre-
quent in the South, where we can see it prowl-
ing around the abundant manna which the
mule scatters heedlessly along the white roads
and the stony paths: I mean the Sacred
Scarab of the Egyptians, or, more simply,
the Dung-beetle, the brother of our northern
Geotrupes, a big Coleopteron all clad in
black, whose mission in this world is to shape
the more savoury parts of the prize into an
enormous ball which he must next roll to the
subterranean dining-room where the incred-
ible digestive adventure is to take its course.
But destiny, jealous of all undiluted bliss, be-
fore admitting him to that spot of sheer
delight, imposes upon the grave and probably
sententious beetle tribulations without num-
ber, which are nearly always complicated by
the arrival of an untoward parasite.

Hardly has he begun, by dint of great ef-
forts of his frontal shield and bandy legs, to
roll the toothsome sphere backwards, when an

II

The Life of the Spider

indelicate colleague, who has been awaiting
the completion of the work, appears and hypo-
critically offers his services. The other well
knows that, in this case, help and services,
besides being quite unnecessary, will soon
mean partition and dispossession; and he ac-
cepts the enforced collaboration without en-
thusiasm. But, so that their respective rights
may be clearly marked, the legal owner in-
variably retains his original place, that is to
say, he pushes the ball with his forehead,
whereas the compulsory guest, on the other
side, pulls it towards him. And thus it jogs
along between the two gossips, amid inter-
minable vicissitudes, flurried falls, grotesque
tumbles, till it reaches the place chosen to
receive the treasure and to become the ban-
queting-hall. On arriving, the owner sets
about digg*ng out the refectory, while the
sponger pretends to go innocently to sleep on
the top of the bolus. The excavation be-
comes visibly wider and deeper; and soon the
first dung-beetle dives bodily into it. This
is the moment for which the cunning aux-
iliary was waiting. He nimbly scrambles
down from the blissful eminence and, push-
ing it with all the energy that a bad con-
I2

Preface

science gives, strives to gain the offing. But
the other, who is rather distrustful, inter-
rupts his laborious excavations, looks over-
board, sees the sacrilegious rape and leaps out
of the hole. Caught in the act, the shame-
less and dishonest partner makes untold ef-
forts to play upon the other’s credulity,
turns round and ‘round the inestimable orb
and, embracing it and propping himself
against it, with fraudulent heroic exertions
pretends to be frantically supporting it on a
non-existent slope. The two expostulate with
each other in silence, gesticulate wildly with
their mandibles and tarsi and then, with one
accord, bring back the ball to the burrow.

It is pronounced sufficiently spacious and
comfortable. They introduce the treasure,
they close the entrance to the corridor; and
now, in the propitious darkness and the warm
damp, where the magnificent stercoral globe
alone holds sway, the two reconciled mess-
mates sit down face to face. Then, far
from the light and the cares of day and in
the great silence of the hypogeous shade,
solemnly commences the most fabulous ban-
quet whereof abdominal imagination ever
evoked the absolute beatitudes.

13

The Life of the Spider

For two whole months, they remain clois-
tered; and, with their paunches proportion-
ately hollowing out the inexhaustible sphere,
definite archetypes and sovereign symbols of
the pleasures of the table and the gaiety of
the belly, they eat without stopping, without
interrupting themselves for a second, day or
night. And, while they gorge, steadily, with
a movement perceptible and constant as that
of a clock, at the rate of three millimetres a
minute, an endless, unbroken ribbon unwinds
and stretches itself behind them, fixing the
memory and recording the hours, days and
weeks of the prodigious feast.

4

After the Dung-beetle, that dolt of the
company, let us greet, also in the order of the
Coleoptera, the model household of the Min-
otaurus typheus, which is pretty well-known
and extremely gentle, in spite of its dreadful
name. The female digs a huge burrow
which is often more than a yard and a half
deep and which consists of spiral staircases,
landings, passages and numerous chambers.

14

Preface

The male loads the earth on the three-
pronged fork that surmounts his nead and
carries it to the entrance of the conjugal
dwelling. Next, he goes into the fields in
search of the harmless droppings left by the
sheep, takes them down to the first storey of
the crypt and reduces them to flour with his
trident, while the mother, right at the bottom,
collects the flour and kneads it into huge cylin-
drical loaves, which will presently be food for
the little ones. For three months, until the
provisions are deemed sufficient, the unfortu-
nate husband, without taking nourishment of
any kind, exhausts himself in this gigantic
work. At last, his task accomplished, feeling
his end at hand, so as not to encumber the
house with his wretched remains, he spends
his last strength in leaving the burrow, drags
himself laboriously along and, lonely and re-
signed, knowing that he is henceforth good for
nothing, goes and dies tar away among the
stones.

Here, on another side, are some rather
strange caterpillars, the Processionaries,
which are not rare; and, as it happens, a
single string of them, five or six yards long,
has just climbed down from my umbrella.

15

The Life of the Spider

pines and is at this moment unfolding itself
in the walks of my garden, carpeting the
ground traversed with transparent silk, ac-
cording to the custom of the race. To say
nothing of the meteorological apparatus of
unparalleled delicacy which they carry on their
backs, these caterpillars, as everybody knows,
have this remarkable quality, that they travel
only in a troop, one after the other, like
Breughel’s blind men or those of the parable,
each of them obstinately, indissolubly follow-
ing its leader; so much so that, our author
having one morning disposed the file on the
edge of a large stone vase, thus closing the
circuit, for seven whole days, during an atro-
cious week, amidst cold, hunger and un-
speakable weariness, the unhappy troop on its
tragic round, without rest, respite or mercy,
pursued the pitiless circle until death overtook
it.

5

But I see that our heroes are infinitely too
numerous and that we must not linger over
our descriptions. We may at most, in enu-
merating the more important and familiar,

16

Preface

bestow on each of them a hurried epithet, in
the manner of old Homer. Shall I mention,
for instance, the Leucospis, a parasite of the
Mason-bee, who, to slay his brothers and
sisters in their cradle, arms himself with a
horn helmet and a barbed breastplate, which
he doffs immediately after the extermination,
the safeguard of a hideous right of primo-
geniture? Shall I tell of the marvellous
anatomical knowledge of the Tachytes, of
the Cerceris, of the Ammophila, of the Lan-
guedocian Sphex, who, according as they
wish to paralyze or to kill their prey or their
adversary, know exactly, without ever blunder-
ing, which nerve-centre to strike with their
sting or their mandibles? Shall I speak of
the art of the Eumenes, who transforms her
stronghold into a complete museum adorned
with shells and grains of translucent quartz;
of the magnificent metamorphosis of the
Pachytilus cinarescens; of the musical in-
strument owned by the Cricket, whose bow
numbers one hundred and fifty triangular
prisms that set in motion simultaneously the
four dulcimers of the elytron? Shall I sing
the fairy-like birth of the nymphs of the
Anthophagus, a transparent monster, with a

17

The Life of the Spider

bull’s snout, that seems carved out of a block
of crystal? Would you behold the Flesh-fly,
the common Blue-bottle, daughter of the mag-
got, as she issues from the earth? Listen to
our author:

‘She disjoints her head into two movable
halves, which, each distended with its great
red eye, by turns separate and reunite. In
the intervening space a large glassy hernia
rises and disappears, disappears and rises.
When the two halves move asunder, with one
eye forced back to the right and the other to
the left, it is as though the insect were split-
ting its brain-pan in order to expel the con-
tents. Then the hernia rises, blunt at the end
and swollen into a great knob. Next, the
forehead closes and the hernia retreats, leav-
ing visible only a kind of shapeless muzzle.
In short, a frontal pouch, with deep pulsations
momentarily renewed, becomes the instru-
ment of deliverance, the pestle wherewith the
newly-hatched Dipteron bruises the sand and
causes it tocrumble. Gradually, the legs push
the rubbish back and the insect advances so
much towards the surface.’

8

Preface
6

And monster after monster passes, such as
the imagination of Bosch or Callot never
conceived! ‘The larva of the Rose-chafer,
which, though it have legs under its belly,
always travels on its back; the Blue-winged
Locust, unluckier still than the Flesh-fly and
possessing nothing wherewith to perforate the
soil, to escape from the tomb and reach the
light but a cervical bladder, a viscous blister;
and the Empusa, who, with her curved ab-
domen, her great projecting eyes, her legs
with knee-pieces armed with cleavers, her hal-
berd, her abnormally tall mitre would cer-
tainly be the most devilish goblin that ever
walked the earth, if, beside her, the Praying
Mantis were not so frightful that her mere
aspect deprives her victims of their power of
movement when she assumes, in front of
them, what the entomologists have termed
‘the spectral attitude.’

One cannot mention, even casually, the
numberless industries—nearly all of absorb-
ing interest—exercised among the rocks, un-
der the ground, in the walls, on the branches,
the grass, the flowers, the fruits and down to

19

The Life of the Spider

the very bodies of the subjects studied; for
we sometimes find a treble superposition of
parasites, as in the Oil-beetles; and we see the
maggot itself, the sinister guest at the last
feast of all, feed some thirty brigands with
its substance.

7

Among the Hymenoptera, which represent
the most intellectual class in the world which
we are studying, the building-talents of our
wonderful Domestic Bee are certainly equal,
in other orders of architecture, by those of
more than one wild and solitary bee and not-
ably by the Megachile, or Leaf-cutter, a lit-
tle insect which is not all outside show and
which, to house its eggs, manufactures honey-
pots formed of a multitude of disks and el-
lipses cut with mathematical precision from
the leaves of certain trees. For lack of space,
I am unable, to my great regret, to quote the
beautiful and pellucid pages which J. H.
Fabre, with his usual conscientiousness, de-
votes to the exhaustive study of this admirable
work; nevertheless, since the occasion offers,
let us listen to his own words, though it be

20

Preface

but for a moment and in regard to a single
detail:

“With the oval pieces, the question changes.
What model has the Megachile when cut-
ting into fine ellipses the delicate material of
the robinia? What ideal pattern guides her
scissors? What measure dictates the dimen-
sions? One would like to think of the insect
as a living compass, capable of tracing an
elliptic curve by a certain natural inflexion
of the body, even as our arm traces a circle
by swinging from the shoulder. A blind mech-
anism, the mere outcome of her organiza-
tion, would in that case be responsible for her
geometry. This explanation would tempt
me, if the oval pieces of large dimensions
were not accompanied by much smaller, but
likewise oval pieces, to fill the empty spaces.
A compass which changes its radius of itself
and alters the degree of curvature according
to the exigencies of a plan appears to me an
instrument somewhat difficult to believe in.
There must be something better than that.
The circular pieces of the lid suggest it to us.

‘If, by the mere flexion inherent in her
structure, the leaf-cutter succeeds in cutting

2I

The Life of the Spider

out ovals, how does she manage to cut out
rounds? Can we admit the presence of other
wheels in the machinery for the new pattern,
so different in shape and size? However, the
real point of the difficulty does not lie there.
Those rounds, for the most part, fit the
mouth of the bottle with almost exact preci-
sion. When the cell is finished, the bee flies
hundreds of yards further to make the lid.
She arrives at the leaf from which the disk
is to be cut. What picture, what recollection
has she of the pot to be covered? Why,
none at all: she has never seen it; she works
underground, in profound darkness! At the
utmost, she can have the indications of touch:
not actual indications, of course, for the pot
is not there, but past indications, ineffective
in a work of precision. And yet the disk
must be of a fixed diameter: if it were too
large, it would not fit in; if too small, it
would close badly, it would smother the egg
by sliding down on the honey. How shall
it be given its correct dimensions without a
pattern? The Bee does not hesitate for a
moment. She cuts out her disk with the same
rapidity which she would display in detach-
ing any shapeless lobe just useful for closing;
22

Preface

and that disk, without further measurement,
is of the right size to fit the pot. Let whoso
will explain this geometry, which in my
opinion is inexplicable, even when we allow
for memory begotten of touch and sight.’

Let us add that the author has calculated
that, to form the cells of a kindred Mega-
chile, the Silky Megachile, exactly 1,064 of
these ellipses and disks would be required;
and they must all be collected and shaped in
the course of an existence that lasts a few
weeks.

8

Who would imagine that the Pentatomida,
on the other hand, the poor and evil-smelling
bug of the woods, has invented a really ex-
traordinary apparatus wherewith to leave the
egg? And first let us state that this egg is
a marvellous little box of snowy whiteness,
which our author thus describes:

‘The microscope discovers a surface en-
graved with dents similar to those of a
thimble and arranged with exquisite sym-
metry. At the top and bottom of the cylin-

23

The Life of the Spider

der is a wide belt of a dead black; on the
sides, a large white zone with four big, black
spots evenly distributed. The lid, surrounded
by snowy cilia and encircled with white at
the edge, swells into a black cap with a white
knot in the centre. Altogether, a dismal
burial urn, with the sudden contrast between
the dead black and the fleecy white. The
funeral pottery of the ancient Etruscans
would have found a magnificent model here.’

The little bug, whose forehead is too soft,
covers her head, to raise the lid of the box,
with a mitre formed of three triangular rods,
which is always at the bottom of the egg at
the moment of delivery. Her limbs being
sheathed like those of a mummy, she has
nothing wherewith to put her tringles in
motion except the pulsations produced by the
rhythmic flow of blood in her skull and act-
ing after the manner of a piston. ‘The rivets
of the lid gradually give way; and, as soon
as the insect is free, she lays aside her
mechanical helmet.

Another species of bug, the Reduvius per-
sonatus, which lives mostly in lumber-rooms,
where it lies hidden in the dust, has invented

24

Preface

a still more astonishing system of hatching.
Here, the lid of the egg is not riveted, as in
the case of the Pentatomidez, but simply
glued. At the moment of liberation, the lid
rises and we see:

‘... a spherical vesicle emerge from the
shell and gradually expand, like a soap-
bubble blown through a straw. Driven
further and further back by the extension of
this bladder, the lid falls.

‘Then the bomb bursts; in other words,
the blister, swollen beyond its capacity of
resistance, rips at the top. ‘This envelope,
which is an extremely tenuous membrane,
generally remains clinging to the edge of the
orifice, where it forms a high, white rim.
At other times, the explosion loosens it
and flings it outside the shell. In those con-
ditions, it is a dainty cup, half spherical, with
torn edges, lengthened out below into a deli-
cate, winding stalk.’

Now, how is this miraculous explosion pro-
duced? J. H. Fabre assumes that:

‘Very slowly, as the little animal takes
shape and grows, this bladder-shaped reser-

25

The Life of the Spider

voir receives the products of the work of
respiration performed under the cover of the
outer membrane. Instead of being expelled
through the egg-shell, the carbonic acid, the
incessant result of the vital oxidization, is
accumulated in this sort of gasometer, inflates
and distends it and presses upon the lid.
When the insect is ripe for hatching, a super-
added activity in the respiration completes
the inflation, which perhaps has been prepar-
ing since the first evolution of the germ. At
last, yielding to the increasing pressure of
the gaseous bladder, the lid becomes unsealed.
The Chick in its shell has its air-chamber;
the young Reduvius has its bomb of carbonic
acid: it frees itself in the act of breathing.’

One would never weary of dipping eagerly
into these inexhaustible treasures. We im-
agine, for instance, that, from seeing cob-
webs so frequently displayed in all manner of
places, we possess adequate notions of the
genius and methods of our familiar spiders.
Far from it: the realities of scientific obser-
vation call for an entire volume crammed
with revelations of which we had no concep-
tion. I will simply name, at random, the

26

Preface

symmetrical arches of the Clotho Spider’s
nest, the astonishing funicular flight of the
young of our Garden Spider, the diving-bell
of the Water Spider, the live telephone-wire
which connects the web with the leg of the
Cross Spider hidden in her parlour and in-
forms her whether the vibration of her toils
is due to the capture of a prey or a caprice of
the wind.

9

It is impossible, therefore, short of having
unlimited space at one’s disposal, to do more
than touch, as it were with the tip of the
phrases, upon, the miracles of maternal in-
stinct, which, moreover, are confounded with
those of the higher manufactures and form
the bright centre of the insect’s psychology.
One would, in the same way, require several
chapters to convey a summary idea of the
nuptial rites which constitute the quaintest
and most fabulous episodes of these new
Arabian Nights.

The male of the Spanish-fly, for instance,
begins by frenziedly beating his spouse with
his abdomen and his feet, after which, with

27

The Life of the Spider

his arms crossed and quivering, he remains
long in ecstasy. The newly-wedded Osmie
clap their mandibles terribly, as though it
were a matter rather of devouring each
other; on the other hand, the largest of our
moths, the Great Peacock, who is the size of
a bat, when drunk with love finds his mouth
so completely atrophied that it becomes no
more than a vague shadow. But nothing
equals the marriage of the Green Grasshop-
per, of which I cannot speak here, for it is
doubtful whether even the Latin language
possesses the words needed to describe it as
it should be described.

All said, the marriage customs are dread-
ful and, contrary to that which happens in
every other world, here it is the female of
the pair that stands for strength and intelli-
gence and also for cruelty and tyranny, which
appear to be their inevitable consequence.
Almost every wedding ends in the violent
and immediate death of the husband. Often,
the bride begins by eating a certain number
of suitors. The archetype of these fantastic
unions could be supplied by the Languedo-
cian Scorpions, who, as we know, carry
lobster-claws and a long tail supplied with a

28

Preface

sting, the prick of which is extremely dan-
gerous. They have a prelude to the festival
in the shape of a sentimental stroll, claw in
claw; then, motionless, with fingers still
gripped, they contemplate each other bliss-
fully, interminably: day and night pass over
their ecstasy while they remain face to
face, petrified with admiration. Next, the
foreheads come together and touch; the
mouths—if we can give the name of mouth
to the monstrous orifice that opens between
the claws—are joined in a sort of kiss; after
which the union is accomplished, the male is
transfixed with a mortal sting and the ter-
rible spouse crunches and gobbles him up with
gusto.

But the Mantis, the ecstatic insect with the
arms always raised in an attitude of supreme
invocation, the horrible Mantis religiosa or
Praying Mantis, does better still: she eats
her husbands (for the insatiable creature
sometimes consumes seven or eight in succes-
sion), while they strain her passionately to
their heart. Her inconceivable kisses devour,
not metaphorically, but in an appallingly real
fashion, the ill-fated choice of her soul or
her stomach. She begins with the head,

29

The Life of the Spider

goes down to the thorax, nor stops till she
comes to the hind-legs, which she deems too
tough. She then pushes away the unfortu-
nate remains, while a new lover, who was
quietly awaiting the end of the monstrous
banquet, heroically steps forward to undergo
the same fate.

J. H. Fabre is indeed the revealer of this
new world, for, strange as the admission may
seem at a time when we think that we know all
that surrounds us, most of those insects mi-
nutely described in the vocabularies, learnedly
classified and barbarously christened had
hardly ever been observed in real life or thor-
oughly investigated, in all the phases of their
brief and evasive appearances. He has devoted
to surprising their little secrets, which are the
reverse of our greatest mysteries, fifty years
of a solitary existence, misunderstood, poor,
often very near to penury, but lit up every
day by the joy which a truth brings, which is
the greatest of all human joys. Petty truths,
I shall be told, those presented by the habits
of a spider or a grasshopper. There are
no petty truths to-day; there is but one truth,
whose looking-glass, to our uncertain eyes,
seems broken, though its every fragment,

30

Preface

whether reflecting the evolution of a planet
or the flight of a bee, contains the supreme
law.

And these truths thus discovered had the
good fortune to be grasped by a mind which
knew how to understand what they them-
selves can but ambiguously express, to inter-
pret what they are obliged to conceal and, at
the same time, to appreciate the shimmering
beauty, almost invisible to the majority of
mankind, that shines for a moment around
all that exists, especially around that which
still remains very close to nature and has
hardly left its primeval obscurity.

To make of these long annals the generous
and delightful masterpiece that they are and
not the monotonous and arid register of little
descriptions and insignificant acts that they
might have been, various and so to speak
conflicting gifts were needed. To the
patience, the precision, the scientific minute-
ness, the protean and practical ingenuity, the
energy of a Darwin in the face of the un-
known, to the faculty of expressing what has
to be expressed with order, clearness and cer-
tainty, the venerable anchorite of Sérignan
adds many of those qualities which are not to

31

The Life of the Spider

be acquired, certain of those innate good
poetic virtues which cause his sure and supple
prose, devoid of artificial ornament and yet
adorned with simple and as it were uninten-
tional charm, to take its place among the ex-
cellent and lasting prose of the day, prose
of the kind that has its own atmosphere, in
which we breathe gratefully and tranquilly
and which we find only around masterpieces.

Lastly, there was needed—and this was not
the least requirement of the work—a mind
ever ready to cope with the riddles which,
among those little objects, rise up at every
step, as enormous as those which fill the
skies and perhaps more numerous, more im-
perious and more strange, as though nature
had here given a freer scope to her last wishes
and an easier outlet to her secret thoughts.
He shrinks from none of those boundless
problems which are persistently put to us by
all the inhabitants of that tiny world where
mysteries are heaped up in a denser and more
bewildering fashion than in any other. He
thus meets and faces, turn by turn, the re-
doubtable questions of instinct and _ intelli-
gence, of the origin of species, of the
harmony or the accidents of the universe, of

32

Preface

the life lavished upon the abysses of death,
without counting the no less vast, but so to
speak more human problems which, among
infinite others, are inscribed within the range,
if not within the grasp, of our intelligence:
parthenogenesis; the prodigious geometry
of the wasps and bees; the logarithmic spiral
of the Snail; the antennary sense; the miracu-
lous force which, in absolute isolation, with-
out the possible introduction of anything
from the outside, increases the volume of the
Minotaurus’ egg ten-fold, where it lies, and,
during seven to nine months, nourishes with
an invisible and spiritual food, not the leth-
argy, but the active life of the Scorpion and
of the young of the Lycosa and the Clotho
Spider. He does not attempt to explain them
by one of those generally-acceptable theories
such as that of evolution, which merely shifts
the ground of the difficulty and which, I may
mention in passing, emerges from these
volumes in a somewhat sorry plight, after
being sharply confronted with incontestable
facts.

Waiting for chance or a god to enlighten
us, he is able, in the presence of the un-
known, to preserve that great religious and

33

The Life of the Spider

attentive silence which is dominant in the best
minds of the day. There are those who say:

‘Now that you have reaped a plentiful
harvest of details, you should follow up an-
alysis with synthesis and generalize the origin
of instinct in an all-embracing view.’

To these he replies, with the humble and
magnificent loyalty that illumines all his
work:

‘Because I have stirred a few grains of sand
on the shore, am J in a position to know the
depths of the ocean?

‘Life has unfathomable secrets. Human
knowledge will be erased from the archives
of the world before we possess the last word
that the Gnat has to say tous....

‘Success is for the loud talkers, the self-
convinced dogmatists; everything is admitted
on condition that it be noisily proclaimed.
Let us throw off this sham and recognize that,
in reality, we know nothing about anything,
if things were probed to the bottom. Scien-
tifically, Nature is a riddle without a definite
solution to satisfy man’s curiosity. Hypoth-
esis follows on hypothesis; the theoretical
rubbish-heap accumulates; and truth ever

34

Preface

eludes us. To know how not to know might
well be the last word of wisdom.’

Evidently, this is hoping too little. In the
frightful pit, in the bottomless funnel where-
in whirl all those contradictory facts which
are resolved in obscurity, we know just as
much as our cave-dwelling ancestors; but at
least we know that we do not know. We
survey the dark faces of all the riddles, we
try to estimate their number, to classify their
varying degrees of dimness, to obtain an idea
of their places and extent. That already is
something, pending the day of the first gleams
of light. In any case, it means doing, in the
presence of the mysteries, all that the most
upright intelligence can do to-day; and that
is what the author of this incomparable Iliad
does, with more confidence than he professes.
He gazes at them attentively. He wears out
his life in surprising their most minute se-
crets. He prepares for them, in his thoughts
and in ours, the field necessary for their evo-
lutions. He increases the consciousness of his
ignorance in proportion to their importance
and learns to understand more and more that
they are incomprehensible.

Maorice MAETERLINICK.
35

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

The following essays have been selected
from the ten volumes composing the Souvenirs
entomologiques. Although a good deal of
Henri Fabre’s masterpiece has been published
in English, none of the articles treating of
spiders has been issued before, with the excep-
tion of that forming Chapter II of the pres-
ent volume, The Banded Epeira, which first
appeared in The English Review. ‘The rest
are new to England and America.

The Fabre books already published are
Insect Life, translated by the author of Made-
moiselle Mori (Macmillan Co., 1901); The
Life and Love of the Insect, translated by
myself (Macmillan Co., 1911); and Social
Life in the Insect World, translated by Mr.
Bernard Miall (Century Co., 1912). Refer-
ences to the above volumes will be found,
whenever necessary, in the foot-notes to the
present edition.

For the rest, I have tried not to overburden
my version with notes; and, in view of this, I
have, as far as possible, simplified the scier-

58

Preface

tific terms that occur in the text. In so doing
I know that I have but followed the wishes
of the author, who never wearies of protest-
ing against ‘the barbarous terminology’ fa-
voured by his brother-naturalists. The mat-
ter became even more urgent in English than
in any of the Latin languages; and I readily
agreed when it was pointed out to me that, in
a work essentially intended for general read-
ing, there was no purpose in speaking of a
Coleopteron when the word ‘beetle’ was to
hand. In cases where an insect had inevitably
to be mentioned by its Greek or Latin name,
a note is given explaining, in the fewest words,
the nature of the insect in question.

I have to thank my friend, M. Maurice
Maeterlinck, for the stately preface which he
has contributed to this volume, and Mr. Mar-
maduke Langdale and Miss Frances Rodwell
for the generous assistance which they have
given me in the details of my work. And I
am also greatly indebted to Mr. W. S. Graff
Baker for his invaluable help with the mathe-
matical difficulties that confronted me in the
translation of the Appendix.

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.

CHELSEA, 10 October, 1912.

37

CHAPTER I

THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA

‘THE Spider has a bad name: to most of

us, she represents an odious, noxious ani-
mal, which every one hastens to crush under
foot. Against this summary verdict the ob-
server sets the beast’s industry, its talent as a
weaver, its wiliness in the chase, its tragic nup-
tials and other characteristics of great inter-
est. 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 where-
with 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 imme-
diate 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

39

The Life of the Spider

can safely say as regards the great majority of
the Spiders of our reg:ons.

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 spec-
kled with carmine-red; above all, I have heard
most disquieting stories told about her.
Around Ajaccio and Bonifacio, her bite is re-
puted 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, nor far from Avig-
non, the harvesters speak with dread of
Theridion lugubre,? first observed by Léon
Dufour in the Catalonian mountains; accord-
ing to them, her bite would lead to serious ac-
cidents. 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 re-
course to music, the only efficacious remedy,

*A small or moderate-sized Spider found among
foliage —Translator’s Note.
40

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

so they tell us. Special tunes have been noted,
those quickest to afford relief. There is medi-
cal choreography, medical music. And have
we not the tarantella, a lively and nimble
dance, bequeathed to us perhaps by the heal-
ing 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 Taran-
tula may not provoke, in weak and very im-
pressionable people, a nervous disorder which
music will relieve: nothing tells us that a pro-
fuse perspiration, resulting from a very ener-
getic dance, is not likely to diminish the dis-
comfort by diminishing the cause of the ail-
ment. So far from laughing, I reflect and en-
quire. when the Calabrian peasant talks to me
of his Tarantula, the Pujaud reaper of his
Theridion !ugubre, 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 con-
nection. It is not my business to discuss a

41

The Life of the Spider

medical point, I interest myself especially in
matters of instinct; but, as the poison-fangs
play a leading part in the huntress’s man-
ceuvres 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 Léon Dufour,*
one of those accounts in which I used to de-
light and which did much to bring me into
closer touch with the insect. The Wizard
of the Landes tells us of the ordinary Taran-
tula, 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 pas-
sages, 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

*Léon Dufour (1780- 1865) was an army surgeon who
served with distinction in several campaigns and subse-
quently practised as a doctor in the Landes. He attained
great eminence as a naturalist—Translator’s Note.

42

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

time a skilful hunter and an able engineer.
It was a question for her not only of con-
structing 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 Taran-
tula 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 perpen-
dicular 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 J 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 bur-
row is usually surmounted by a shaft con-
structed throughout by herself. It is a gen-
uine 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 circum-
stance, which seems to have been calculated
by the industrious Spider, lends itself admir-

43

The Life of the Spider

ably 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* 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 clean-
liness 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 al-

*The Tarantula is a Lycosa, or Woli-spider Fabre’s
Tarastula, the Black-bellied Tarantula, :s identical with
the Narbonne Lycosa, under which name the description
is continued in Chapters mm. to vi, all of which «rere
written at_a considerably later date than the present
chapter.—Translator's Note.

44

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

ways light upon the proper building-materials,
or, lastly, because architectural talent is pos-
sibly declared only in individuals that have
reached the final stage. the period of per-
fection of their physical and_ intellectual
development.

‘One thing is certain, that I have had
numerous opportunities of seeing these shafts,
these outworks 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 ob-
structing 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
Soider's burrows and discovered that thev
were inhabited by seeing her come to a point
on the first foor of her dwelling—the elbow

45

The Life of the Spider

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, with-
out meeting the Tarantula. I renewed the
operation in other burrows. always with the
same want of success; I really wanted a pick-
axe 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 at-
tention and desires were roused. Attracted
by the bait, she came with measured stens
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 com-

46

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

pelled her to enter a paper bag, which I
closed without delay.

‘Sometimes, suspecting the trap, or per
haps less pressed by hunger, she would remain
coy and motionless, at a slight distance from
the threshold, which she did not think it oppor-
tune to cross. Her patience outlasted mine.
In that case, I employed the following tac-
tics: after making sure of the Lycosa’s posi-
tion 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 re-
mained 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 Tarantule 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 lit-

47

The Life of the Spider

tle 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' 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:

‘“Ruricole nostri quando eas captare vo-
lunt, ad illorum latibula accedunt, tenuisque
avenacee fistule 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.” ?

‘The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight,
especially when we are filled with the idea

*Giorgio Baglivi (1669-1707), professor of anatomy
and medicine at Rome.—Translator’s .Vote.

“When cur husbaidmen wish to catch them, they ap-
proach their hiding-places, and play on a thin grass pipe.
making a sound not unitke the humming of bees. Hear-
ing 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 herseli is caught by
her rustic trapper.”

48

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

that her bite is dangerous, so fierce in appear-
ance, is nevertheless quite easy to tame, as I
have often found by experiment.

"On the 7th of May 1812, while at Va-
lencia, in Spain. I caught a fair-sized male
Tarantula, without hurting him, and im-
prisoned him in a glass jar, with a paper cover
in which I cut a trapdoor. 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 accus-
tomed 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 ot his
mandibles. he was not satished, 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 al-
ways made his toilet. which consisted in
brushing his palpi and mand:bles. both ins:de
and out. with his front tarsi. After that, he
resumed his air of motionless gravity. The

49

The Life of the Spider

evening and the night were his time for tak-
ing 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 at-
tire or the dimensions of his body. On the
14th of July, I had to leave Valencia; and
I stayed away until the 23d. During this
time, the Tarantula fasted; I found him look-
ing 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 rst
of October, I once more deserted the Taran-
tula, 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 Taran-
tule with a short description of a curious

50

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

fight between those animals. One day, when
I had had a successful hunt after these
Lycosz, I picked out two full-grown and
very powerful males and brought them to-
gether in a wide jar, in order to enjoy the
sight of a combat to the death. After walk-
‘ng round the arena several times. to trv 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 them-
selves upon each ocher at the same time.
twisting their legs round each other and ob-
stinately struggling to bite each other with
the fangs of the mandibles. Whether trom
fatigue or from convention, the combat was
suspended: there was 2 few seconds’ truce:
and each athlete moved away and resumed
his threatening posture. This circumstance
reminded me that, in the strange nghts be-
tween cats. there are also suspensions of
IT

is

The Life of the Spider

hostilities. But the contest was soon renewed
between my two Tarantule with increased
fierceness. One of them, after holding vic-
tory 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 Nar-
bonne Lycosa, half the size of the other, clad
in black velvet on the lower surface. espe-
cially 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 mv harmas* 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,

*Provencal for the bit of waste ground cn which the
author studies his insects in the natural state—Trans-
lator’; Note.

52

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

like diamonds, the four great eves. 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-lan d is the Lycasa'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. birs 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.

53

The Life of the Spider

Often, the Spider confines herself to drawing
together the dry blades of the nearest grass,
which she ties down with the straps of her
spinnerets, without removing the blades from
the stems; often, also, she rejects this scaffold-

ing in tavour of a masonry constructed of
small stones. The nature of the kerb is de-
cided by the nature of the materials within
the Lycosa’s reach, in the close neighbour-
hood of the building-vard. There is no
selection: everything meets with approval,
provided that it be near at hand.

Economy of time, therefore, causes the de-
fensive 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 subter-
ranean channel, of which they are the exten-
sion. There is here no difference in diameter
between the underground manor and its out-
work, 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.

54

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

When the soil is earthy and homogeneous,
the architectural type is free from obstruc-
tions and the Spider's dwelling is a cylin-
drical 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 earthslips
and facilitates scaling when a prompt exit is
required.

Baglivi. in his unsophisticated Latin,
teaches us how to catch the Tarantula. I be-
eame his rusteus insidiagitor; | waved a spike-
let at the entrance of the burrow to imitate
the humming of a Bee and attract the atten-
tion of the I veosa. 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
2 little wav up the vertical tube to enquire
into. the sounds at her door: but the wily
animal soon scents a trap; it remains motion-
less at mid-height and, at the least alarm, goes

nh
nt

The Life of the Spider

down again to the branch gallery, where it is
invisible.

Léon Dufour’s appears to me a better
method if it were only practicable in the con-
ditions wherein I find myself. To drive a
knife quickly into the ground, across the bur-
row, 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 man-
ceuvre 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 in-
truding 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

56

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

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 dificult moment. If I continue
the gentle movement. the Spider, feeling her-
self dragged out of her home. would at once
run back indoors. It is impossible to get the
suspicious animal out by this means. There-
fore, 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 ts timid,
as though scared, and hardly capable of run-
ning 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 sup-
ply 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 open-

yy

The Life of the Spider

ing. The powerful Bee at first flutters and
hums about her glass prison; then, perceiv-
ing a burrow similar to that of her family.
she enters it without much hesitation. She is
extremely ‘ll-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 himming 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, ith hang-
ing proboscis. A terrible tragedy must have
happened. The Spider follows, refusing to
let go so rich a booty. Game aud huntress
are brought to the orifice. Sometimes. m‘s-
trustful, the Lycosa goes :n again; but we
have only to leave the Bumble-bee on the
threshold of the door. or even a rew inches
away, to see her reappear, issue from her
fortress and dzringly recapture her prey.
This is the moment: the house is closed with
the finger. or a pebble: and, as Baglivi savs,
‘captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore,’ to
which I will add, ‘adjucante Bombo.”*
*Thanks to the Bumblebee.’

38

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

The object of these hunting methods was
not exactly to obrain Tarantule: I had not
the least wish to rear the Spider in a bottle.
I was interested in a different matter. Here,
thought J. is an ardent huntress, living solely
by her trade. She does not Prepare preserved
toodstutis for her offspring: she herself feeds
on the prey which she catches. She is not a
‘paralyzer* 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 destravs movement with-
out entirely destroving life. but sbsolute
death, as sudden as possible, which protects
the assailant from the counter-attacxs of the
assailed.

Her game. moreover, is essentially bulky
and not always of the most onl char-
acter. This Diana. ambushed in her tower,
needs a prey worthy of her prowess. The
big Grasshopper, with the powerful jaws; the
irascible Wasp: the Het, the Bumble-bee_ and

other wearers ot ¢ poison dagge T$ Tus: fall
*Lixe the Dung-beeties—Transiaicer’s Neie
"Like the Solitary Wases.—Tronslator’s Nviz

The Life of the Spider

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 de-
fence, 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 impossi-
ble. 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 suf-

60

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

ficient 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 ter-
rible 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 (Bom-
bus hertorum 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 formid-
able as the bite of the second. How comes
it that the Tarantula always has the upper
hand and this moreover in a very short con-
flict, 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 rattle-snake does not kill so quickly,
6

The Life of the Spider

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 Taran-
tula 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 ag-
gressive 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 un-

62

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

der the Spider's mandibles. A weak prey is
a mouthful which the Spider reserves for the
calm of the night. A prey capable of resist-
ance is not attacked in captivity. The pris-
oner’s anxiety cools the hunter's ardour.

The arena of a large bottle enables each
athlete to keep out of the other’s way, re-
spected by her adversary, who is respected in
her turn. Let us reduce the lists, diminish
the enclosure. I put Bumble-bee and Taran-
tula 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 twa

63

The Life of the Spider

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 viola-
cea), clad in black velvet, with wings of pur-
ple 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 memo-
ries on this subject, memories that have cost
me dear. Here indeed is an antagonist worthy

64

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

of the Tarantula, if I succeed in inducing the
Spider to accept her. I place a certain num-
ber, one by one, in bottles small in capacity,
but having a wide neck capable of surround-
ing the entrance to the burrow.

ais the prey which I am about to offer is
capable of overawing the huntress, I select
from among the Tarantule the lustiest, the
boldest, those most stimulated by hunger.
The spikeleted stalk is pushed into the bur-
row. 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 Carpen-
ter-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 dan-
gerous. 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,

65

The Life of the Spider

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 essen-
tially 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 Lycose. 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

66

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

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-experi-
ment 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’ before her: she had shown me
that she is thoroughly versed in the art of
the butcher of the Pampas.* 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 viru-

*Such as the Hairy Ammophila, the Cerceris and the
Languedocian Sphex, Digger-wasps described in other
of the author's essays —Transiator’s Noie.

*The desnucador, the Argentine slaughterman. whose
methods of slaying cattle are detailed in the author’s
essay entitled, The Theory of Instinci—Translaior’s
Note.

67

The Life of the Spider

lence 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 Lycose, would have pre-
sented 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 for-
ceps 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 suc-
cumbs 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 flut-
ters about and buzzes. But half an hour has
not elapsed before death is imminent The

68

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

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 in-
stantaneous 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 Grasshop-
pers as long as one’s finger, large-headed
Locusts, Ephippigere.*. The same result fol-
lows when these are bitten in the neck: light-

‘A family of Grasshoppers—Translator’s Noie.
69

The Life of the Spider

ning death. When injured elsewhere, not-
ably 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 else-
where, 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 ma-
jority refuse to fling themselves upon the Car-
penter-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

70

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

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 indors. And that,
no doubt, is why it took me two sit-
tings of four hours apiece to witness three
assassinations.

Formerly, instructed by the paralysing
Wasps, I had myself tried to produce paral-
ysis by injecting a drop of ammonia into
the thorax of those insects, such as Wee-
vils, Buprestes' and Dung-beetles, whose
compact nervous system assists this physio-
logical operation. I showed myself a ready
pupil to my masters’ teaching and used to
paralyse a Buprestis or a Weevil almost as

1A genus of Beetles—Translator's Note.

71

The Life of the Spider

well as a Cerceris! 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

*A species of Digger-wasp.—Translator’s Note.
72

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

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 fre-
quent. 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 un-
fortunate Sparrow had saddened the whole
family. I myself was not without some re-
morse of conscience: the poor result achieved

73

The Life of the Spider

seemed to me too dearly bought. I am not
made of the stuff of those who, without turn-
ing a hair, rip up Live dogs to find out noth-
ing in particular.

Neverthelss, 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 davs. 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 fre-
quent 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 ani-
mal was put into a large receptacle from
which it could not get out and fed on a varied
diet of imsects—Beetles, Grasshoppers, es-
pecially Cicade*—which it crunched up with
an excellent appetite. Twenty-four hours of
this regimen convinced me that the Mole was

*The Cicada is the Cigale, an insect akin to the Grass-

hopper and icund more particularly in the South of
France.—Translators Note.

74

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

making the best of the bill of fare and taking
kindly to his captivity.

I made 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 pro-
vision of Cicade 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 were still half a
dozen live Cicadz in the receptacle, as well
as a few Beetles.

The bite of the Black-bellied Tarantula
is therefore dangerous tc 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 en-
quiries 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

7

The Life of the Spider

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 larva, destroy
the power of movement by stinging the game
in the other nerve-centres. Both of them at-
tack 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 im-
portance of the nerve-centres of the neck.
We have seen the Hairy Ammophila munch-
ing the caterpillar’s brain, the Languedocian

76

The Black-Bellied Tarantula

Sphex munching the brain of the Ephip-
pigera, with the object of inducing a pass-
ing torpor. But they simply squeeze the
brain, and do even this with a wise dis-
cretion; 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 consump-
tion without delay and brutally thrusts her
fangs into the spot which the others so con-
scientiously respect.

If the instinct of these scientific murderers
is not, in both cases, an inborn predisposi-
tion, 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.

a7

CHeaPLER it

THE BANDED EPEIRA

N 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 ex-
citement, when he lights upon some ingenious
work of art, discovered unawares. Happy are
the simple of heart whose ambition is satis-
fied 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 bit-
ter 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 wonder-
ful object that, at this moment, lies before
my eyes. It is the work of a Spider, the nest

7B

The Banded Epeira

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.?. 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 whi
possessed the drawback of not jarring on the
ear and of being understood by all. This is
out of date. Nowadays, they use the eupho-
nious 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 pro-
gressing !

*The generic title of the work from which these es-
says are taken is Entomological Memories; or, Studies

Relating to the Instinct and Habits of Insects—Trans-
later’s Noite.

79

The Life of the Spider

In bearing and colouring, Epeira fasctata
is the handsomest of the Spiders of the
South. On her fat belly, a mighty silk-ware-
house 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 Grass-
hoppers.

Her hunting-weapon is a large upright
web, whose outer boundary, which varies ac-
cording 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.

80

The Banded Epeira

Straight threads radiate at equal intervals
from a central point. Over this framework
runs a continuous spiral thread, forming
chords, or crossbars, 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
initialing 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 widespread to feel
the shaking of the network in any direction,

81

The Life of the Spider

she waits for what luck will bring her: now
some giddy weakling unable to control its
flight, anon some powerful prey rushing head-
long 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, swath-
ing it completely.

82

The Banded Epeira

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 arm-
ful of fetters. Should the first not suffice, a
second instantly follows and another and yet
another, until the reserves of silk become ex-
hausted.

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 with-
draws, leaving the torpid patient to pine
away.

Soon she comes back to her motionless
head of game: she sucks it, drains it, re-
peatedly changing her point of attack. At
last, the clean-bled remains are flung out of

83

The Life of the Spider

the net and the Spider returns to her am-
bush in the centre of the web.

What the Epeira sucks is not a corpse, but
a numbed body. If I remove the Locust im-
mediately after he has been bitten and
release him from the silken sheath, the
patient recovers his strength to such an ex-
tent 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 mo-
tion by producing a state of torpor. Perhaps
this kindlier bite gives her greater facility in
working her pump. The humours, if stag-
nant in a corpse, wouid 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,* 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

*A species of Grasshopper.—Translator’s Note.
84

The Banded Epeira

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 every-day 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, a well-developed specimen, quite
capable of changing roles, should circum-
stances 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 har-
poons,

1An 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. Ci. Secial Life in the
Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by Bernard
Miall: Chaps. v to vii—Translator’s N oie.

85

The Life of the Spider

Will the Spider dare? Not immedi-
ately. Motionless in the centre of her net,
she consults her strength before attacking the
formidable quarry; she waits until the strug-
gling prey has its claws more thickly en-
tangled. 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

86

The Banded Epeira

only in thin sheets. Fortunately, the busi-
ness 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 precau-
tions 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 in-
satiable glutton, who changes her point of
attack as each wound sucked dries up. Night
comes and robs me of the finish of the un-
bridled debauch. Next morning, the drained
Mantis lies upon the ground. The Ants are
eagerly devouring the remains.

The eminent talents of the Epeire are dis-
played 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

87

The Life of the Spider

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 broad ribbons, in
spindle-shaped patterns, in fanciful meridian
waves, adorns the upper portion of the ex-
terior. 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. Under-
neath, we find a thick layer of reddish-brown
silk, not worked into a fabric this time, but

8

The Banded Epeira

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 treas-
ure 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

89

The Life of the Spider

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 centimeter deep. 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 recep-

+39 inch—Translator’s Note,
go

The Banded Epeira

tacle 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 re-
treats, 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.

gI

The Life of the Spider

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 sudden-
ness, the material changes. The white silk
reappears, wrought into thread. This is the
moment to weave the outer wrapper. Be-
cause 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, pro-
longed with cords or lines, form the main sup-
port 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

g2

The Banded Epeira

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, alter-
nate movement, the hind-legs, the sole im-
plements 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 pre-
cision 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 bal-
loon; and then the spinnerets really touch the
fringed edge. The length of contact is even
considerable. We find, therefore, that the

93

The Life of the Spider

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 move-
ments of the hind-legs. If we wished to un-
wind 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, ir-
regularly, 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, vary-
ing from russet to black. The spinnerets
distribute the material with a wide longitudi-
nal 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 in-
terest 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 re-

94

The Banded Epeira

sume 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 ex-
istence 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 Epeire does not extend beyond the wrap-
per, which is an obtuse cone in the one case
and a balloon in the other. The same in-
ternal arrangements prevail behind this front-
age: first, a flossy quilt; next, a little keg in
which the eggs are packed. Though the two
Spiders build the outer wall according to

95

The Life of the Spider

special architectural rules, they both employ
the same means as a protection against the
cold.

As we see, the egg-bag of the Epeira,
particularly that of the Banded Epeira, is an
important and complex work. Various ma-
terials enter into its composition: white silk,
red silk, brown silk; moreover, these materi-
als 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 entan-
gling shroud over the prey.

What a wonderful silk-factory it is! With
a very simple and never-varying plant, con-
sisting 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 establish-
ment 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

96

The Banded Epeira

in her difficult trade, when some trouble dis-
turbes 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 Epeirz 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 Epeirz in the same cage.
My easy-going captives live together in peace.
There is no strife between them, no encroach-
ing 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 establish-
ments are hung interlace and criss-cross in
a confused network. When one of them

97

The Life of the Spider

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 deco-
rated 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 ex-
igencies 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 there-
fore bound at once to abandon the elaborate
manufacture of a now superfluous nest.

98

The Banded Epeira

Not at all: the bag is woven around noth-
ing, as accurate in shape, as finished in struc-
ture as under normal conditions. The absurd
perseverance displayed by certain Bees,
whose egg and provisions I used to remove,*
is here repeated without the slightest interfer-
ence 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 wad-
ding 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 hard-
ness of the metal do not warn you that you

‘These experiments are described in the author’s es-
say on the Mason Bees entitled Fragmenis on Insect
Psychology—Translaior’s Note.

99

The Life of the Spider

are now engaged upon a senseless task. You
remind me of the Pelopzus,' 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 psy-
chology 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 cur-
rent. 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 pas-
sage. 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

*A species of Wasp.—Translator's Note.
100

The Banded Epeira

stocking, with the edges brought together,
but for a little round hole left at one side.
The outward appearances increase the like-
ness: one can almost see the traces of a knit-
ting-needle working with coarse stitches.
That is why, struck by this shape, the
Provengal peasant, in his expressive language,
calls the Penduline lou Debassaire, the Stock-
ing-knitter.

The early-ripening seedlets of the willows
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 stock-
ing? 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.

yor

The Life of the Spider

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 dis-
pelled by the first breath of air. They
require a canvas, a woof, 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 liga-
ments, 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 1s solid, which is the main point.
Also. this fibrous sheath, the keystone of the
edifice, occupies a fair length of branch,

102

The Banded Epeira

which enables the fastenings for the net to
be multiplied.

The several straps, after describing a cer-
tain number of turns, ravel out at the ends
and hang loose. After them come inter-
laced 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 woof, this inner framework, is ob-
viously 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 in-
serted, 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 parti-

103

The Life of the Spider

tion, 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 the delicate silk fastenings.
Where shall we find in the Penduline’s mat-
tress aught to vie with the Epeira’s eider-
down, that teazled russet gossamer ? The
Spider i 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, squat-
ting 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 on it, she abandons her nest to its fate,
be it good or ill.

104

CHAPTER II
THE NARBONNE LYCOSA

‘THE Epeira, who displays such aston-
ishing 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’ of her encounters
with the Domestic Bee, whom she jugulates
by biting her in the neck.

2In Chapter VIII. of the present volume—Trans-
laior’s Note.

The Life of the Spider

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 dis-
tance. 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

106

The Narbonne Lycosa

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 hatch-
ing. 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

107

The Life of the Spider
died. The Hen does not reach this height of

self-abnegation.

Other Spiders do better still, as, for in-
stance, the Narbonne Lycosa, or Black-
bellied Tarantula (Lycosa narbonnensis,
WALCK.), whose prowess has been described
in an earlier chapter. The reader will re-
member 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 de-
prives 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

108

The Narbonne Lycosa

about. Uneasy as to what is happening
above, the recluse hastens to climb up and
stops, in a threatening attitude, at some dis-
tance 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 con-
trives 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 on-
lookers. And what? The remains of a
Lycosa a little smaller than herself, the re-
mains 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 un-

109

The Life of the Spider

happy wretch has been scrunched up, I in-
carcerate 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
handy. 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 pro-
tection 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 clock-
work, 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 op-
posite 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

110

The Narbonne Lycosa

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 bow]-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 to-
gether in the shape of a globe which projects
largely outside the cavity. The spinnerets
are once more set going. With short move-
ments, 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 de
grees, 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

Tit

The Life of the Spider

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 extri-
cates 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, run-
ning horizontally around the middle, a fold
which a needle is able to raise without break-
ing it. This hem, generally undistinguish-
able 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 wrap-
per is the texture spun over the eggs imme-
diately after they were laid.

Inside, there is nothing but the eggs: no
mattress, no soft eiderdown, like that of the
Epeire. 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:

II2

The Narbonne Lycosa

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 car-
rying 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 un-
usual to meet her roaming about, dragging her
wallet behind her. Her hesitations make one
think that she is looking for her home, which

1I3

The Life of the Spider

she has left for the moment and has a dif-
ficulty in finding.

Why these rambles? There are two rea-
sons: 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 contempla-
tion. Now the preparations for the egg-bag
require an extensive flooring, a supporting
frame-work 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, doubt-
less in the quiet hours of the night.

The meeting with the male seems likew!se
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 verv 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

114

The Narbonne Lycosa

had proof of this when we caught the Lycosa
in the act of devouring her lover above
ground, in a part of the enclosure which had
been broken for planting and which was
therefore not suitable for the Spider's es-
tablishment. The burrow must have been
some way off; and the meeting of the pair
took place at the very spot of the tragic catas-
trophe. 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,

IIS

The Life of the Spider

to indulge in certain experiments of the high-
est interest.

It is a sight worth seeing, that of the Ly-
cosa 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 dag-
gers 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 ex-
change 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 wal-
let. This was to be expected, in view of the
similarity of the pills exchanged.

A test of another kind, with a second sub-
ject, renders the mistake more striking. I
substitute, in the place of the lawful bag,

116

The Narbonne Lycosa

which I have removed, the work of the Silky
Epeira. The colour and softness of the ma-
terial 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 pro-
jections along the edge of the base. The
Spider takes no account of this dissimilarity.
She promptly glues the queer bag to her spin-
nerets and is as pleased as though she were in
possession of her real pill. Nfy 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 aban-
dons the strange bag and pays it no further
attention.

Let us penetrate yet deeper into the wallet-
bearer’s stupidity. After depriving the Ly-
cosa 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

117

The Life of the Spider

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 in-
capable of doing so. She makes a wild rush
and seizes haphazard at one time her prop-
erty, at another my sham product. What-
ever 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 en-
quiry, 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

118

The Narbonne Lycosa

paper, kept in their round shape with a few
bands of thread. Both are very readily ac-
cepted 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 ex-
change 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 fort-
night in September. -\s they come out of the
pill, the youngsters, to the number of about
a couple of a 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 man-

tilla. When the hatching is over, the wallet

119

The Life of the Spider

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 neighbour’s expense. What are they
doing there, so quietly? They allow them-
selves to be carted about, like the young of
the Opossum. Whether she sit in long medi-
tation 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 al-
ways 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 Ameri-
can 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 ma-
ternal spine? Nothing, so far as I know. I

120

The Narbonne Lycosa

do not see them grow larger. I find
them, at the tardy period of their emancipa-
tion, 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 hun-
dreds, 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

12I

The Life of the Spider

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 dis-
lodged 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 be-
longed to her. There is no room on the
abdomen, the regulation resting-place, which
is already occupied by the real sons. The in-
vaders thereupon encamp on the front part,
beset the thorax and change the carrier into

122

The Narbonne Lycosa

a horrible pin-cushion that no longer bears
the least resemblance to a Spider form.
Meanwhile, the sufferer raises no sort of pro-
test 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, pro-
vided 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, Outv.). The little ones, as soon as
they are dislodged from the back of the Ly-
cosa 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 as-
sault is doggedly resumed, to such good
purpose that a dozen succeed in hoisting them-
selves 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

123

The Life of the Spider

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 somer-
saults, 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

ICBELET" has told us how, as a
printer’s apprentice in a cellar, he es-
tablished amicable relations with a Spider.
At a certain hour of the day, a ray of sun-
light would glint through the window of the
gloomy workshop and light up the little com-
positor’s case. Then his eight-legged neigh-
bour 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

‘Jules Michelet (1798-1874), author of L’Otseaw 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

13

The Life of the Spider

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 type-setter’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 sub-
mit 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 trv,
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 es-

126

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

says, 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 ex-
pose 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; oppor-
tunity 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. Ina work,
therefore, of this fragmentary character, rep-
etitions, 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 Nar-
bonne Lycosa, or Black-bellied Tarantula,
chooses her domicile in the waste, pebbly
lands beloved of the thyme. Her dwelling,

Taz

The Life of the Spider

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 per-
pendicular, 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 be-
comes a winding cave, with stone vaults, with
lobbies communicating by means of ‘sharp
passages.

This lack of plan has no attendant draw-
backs, 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 hap-
spens to defend itself.

cAs 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.

128

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

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 fall-
ing. This plaster, which cements the inco-
hesive and smooths the rugged parts, is re-
served more particularly for the top of the
gallery, near the mouth. Here, in the day-
time, 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 bor-
rowed from the dry leaves of the neighbour-
ing grasses, all more or less dexterously tied
together and comented 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 do-
mesticated. I have been living in close com-

129

The Life of the Spider

munion 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 para-
pet and that she makes shift with what
she finds upon her threshold. In _ these
conditions, the building-stones are soon ex-
hausted and the masonrv ceases for lack of
materials.

The wish came over me to see what di-
mensions the circular edifice would assume, if
the Spider were given an unlimited supply.
With captives to whom I myself act as pur-
veyor 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 subiects are housed.

A good-sized earthenware pan. some nine
inches deep, is filled with a red, clavey earth,
rich in pebbles, similar, in short, to that of

10

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

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 priso-
ner is satisfied with her new abode and mani-
fests 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 neigh-

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The Life of the Spider

bour 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 over-
stocked cages. I shall have occasion to de-
scribe those tragedies later.

Let us meanwhile consider the isolated Ly-
cose. 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 rub-
bish. But all, little by little, build the kerb
that is to edge the mouth.

I have given them plenty of first-rate ma-
terials, far superior to those which they use
when left to their own resources. These con-
sist, 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 slen-
der stalks and dry blades of grass. Lastly,
by way of an unprecedented treasure, never
yet employed by a Lycosa, I place at my cap-

132

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

tives’ 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 re-
grettable 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 its 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 posi-
tion 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. Possess-
ing more windfalls than they know what to

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The Life of the Spider

do with, all picked up in their immediate
neighbourhood, my Lycose have built them-
selves 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 em-
ployed 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, sup-
plied 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

134

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

industry. contrived with a view to some ex-
perimental 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 Ly-
cosa 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 de-
lights in tall turrets. She understands the art
of donjon-building and puts it into practice
as oiten 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 en-
trance to her dwelling with a silken trellis

G33

The Life of the Spider

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 ani-
mal 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. 1 Dragon-fly’s head baked by the sun
is as good as a bit of gravel and no better.

sind so, with silk and all sorts of tiny
materials, the Lycosa builds a lidded cap to
the entrance of her home. J am not well ac-
quainted 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 Lycose wherewith the enclosure, as
will be seen later, happens to be thronged in
consequence of my investigations into the dis
persal of the family.

At the time of the tropical August heat, I

136

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

see my Lycosx, now this batch, now that,
building, at the entrance to the burrow, a con-
vex ceiling, which is difficult to distinguish
from the surrounding soil. Can it be to pro-
tect 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 re-
appears 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 any-
thing, 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 Lycose 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

137

The Life of the Spider

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 tur-
ret 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 great-

138

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

est, I see my captives come up slowly from
underground 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, bath-
ing 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 prev 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

130

The Life of the Spider

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 un-
wary 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 pur-
lieus of the burrow. This is the moment to
spring upon the pilgrim from the ramparts.
Until then, we maintain a stoical vigilance.
Wre 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

140

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

is satisfied to be gorged to-day and to remain
empty afterwards for goodness knows how
long. I have sometimes neglected my cater-
ing-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 antici-
pation 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 at-
taining the marriageable age, she roams
among the scrubby grass. This is true hunt-
ing. Should a suitable quarry heave in sight,
the Spider pursues it, drives it from its shel-
ters, 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

141

The Life of the Spider

the air, the Spider pounces on the prey. No
Cat is quicker in catching her Mouse.

But these are the feats of youth not handi-
capped 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 davs 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 leat
provides him with a temporary shelter. In
the end, the burrow, the permanent dwell-
ing, is dug as the inclement season draws
nigh.

The Lycosa shares the Crickets views:
like him, she finds a thousand pleasures in the
vagabond life. With September comes the

142

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

nuptial badge, the black-velvet bib. The
Spiders meet at night, by the soft moon-
light: they romp together, they eat the be-
loved 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 with-
out 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 grand-
mothers. In both, we find the owner and her
family, the latter sometimes already hatched
and sometimes still enclosed in the satin
wallet.

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The Life of the Spider

Seeing no digging-tools, such as the excava-
tion 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 of 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 Ly-
cosa’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

144

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

and take shelter between two strong pillars.
The Cat sheathes her claws under the velvet
of the paw, to preserve their edge and sharp-
ness. 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, sud-
denly 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 cap-
tives, 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

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The Life of the Spider

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 re-
ceives additions and becomes a little higher;
less frequently still. the dwelling is enlarged
and deepened. As a rule, the mansion re-
mains 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 re-
moved from his burrow and caged under
conditions that would allow him to dig him-
self a new home should the fit seize him,

146

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

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 build-
ing a subterranean gallery is imperatively
aroused. When this season is past, the ex-
cavating artist, if accidentally deprived of his
abode, becomes a wandering Bohemian, care-
less of a lodging. He has forgotten his
talents and he sleeps out.

That the bird, the nest-builder, should neg-
lect 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 mis-
haps when away from home? The protec-
tion 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

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The Life of the Spider

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 con-
trivances and with a bit of reed, I] have
previously moulded a burrow roughly repre-
senting 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 ori-
fice; 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 Lvcosa on the surface of the
ground, without first shaping a burrow.
What will the homeless Spider do? Dig her-
self 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
148

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

Spider settled before long in a shaft of her
own construction.

We are disappointed. Weeks pass and not
an effort is made, not one. Demoralised 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 bore-
dom. 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 vou for
many a long day yet: the weather is fine and
victuals plentiful. Dig, delve, go under-
ground, 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 un-
able to work back. To doa 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 Lycose, who are at the burrowing-

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The Life of the Spider

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 freshly spread
around the pit bears witness to the recent date
of the excavations.

Relegated to their wire cages, these young
Lycose behave differently according as the
soil placed at their disposal is or is not al-
ready 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 in-
terrupted 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, 2 house surmounted by the
usual turret.

The others, on the contrary, those for
whom the thrust of my pencil has not con-
trived an entrance-hall representing, to a cer-
tain extent, the natural gallery whence | dis-
lodged them, absolutely refuse to work; and
they die, not withstanding the abundance of
provisions.

150

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow

They first pursue the season’s task. They
were digging when I caught them; and, car-
ried 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, with-
out 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

ISI

The Life of the Spider

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.

152

CHAPTER V
THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE FAMILY

OR three weeks and more the Lycosa
trails the bag of eggs hanging to her
spinnerets. The reader will remember the ex-
periments described in the third chapter of this
volume, particularly those with the cork ball
and the thread pellet which the Spider so fool-
ishly accepts in exchange for the real pill.
Well, this exceedingly dull-witted mother, sat-
ished 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

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The Life of the Spider

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 re-
stored to its place; and the Spider strides off,
still menacing.

Towards the end of summer, all the house-
holders, 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
isa 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 re-
mained 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-

154

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

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, as 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 fur-
nace of its heart. The Lycosa turns hers in
front of the hearth of hearths: she gives neat
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.* 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.

*Chapter IIL of the present volume—Translator’s
Note.
155

The Life of the Spider

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 fur-
ther thought. Huddled together, sometimes
in two or three layers, according to their num-
ber, 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 tod-
dles, clinging to its mother’s skirts; others fol-
low closely, the biggest in the rear, ferreting
in the blackberry-laden hedgerows. It is a
magnificent spectacle of happy-go-lucky fruit-
fulness. They go their way, penniless and re-
joicing. The sun is hot and the earth is
fertile.

But how this picture pales before that of

156

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

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 ani-
mal, 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 gal-
lery unseats a part of the family. The mishap
is not serious. The Hen, fidgeting about her
Chicks, looks for the strays, calls them, gath-
ers them together. The Lycosa knows not
these maternal alarms. Impassively, she leaves
those who drop off to manage their own dif-
ficulty, which they do with wonderful quick-

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The Life of the Spider

ness. Commend me to those youngsters for
getting up without whining, dusting them-
selves 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' watching over cells that are not

*A species of Dung-beetle. Ci. The Lite and Live of

the Insect, by J. Hexri Fabre, trenslated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chap. v—Transistor’s Note.

158

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

her handiwork and do not contain her off-
spring. With a zeal which even the addi-
tional 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 prog-
ress. 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 oblig-
ing 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 de-
mands that. They know this and respect the
lenses of the eyes, however populous the as-

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The Life of the Spider

sembly 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 al-
ready 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 be-
come 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 in-

160

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

terfere, 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 where-
with 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 as the
size of the common pan permits. The distance
is nine inches or more. It is not enough. Prox-
imity soon kindles fierce jealousies between
those intolerant creatures, who are obliged to
live far apart, so as to secure adequate hunt-
ing-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 ex-
change threats, the stronger of the two, the
one on top closes her lethal engine and grinds
the head of the prostrate foe. Then she

r6r

The Life of the Spider

calmly devours the deceased by small mouth-
fuls.

Now what do the youngsters do, while their
mother is being eaten? Easily consoled, heed-
less 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 voung-
lings 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 re-
past, I devoted special attention to watching
the mothers eat. As a rule the prey
is consumed out of sight, in the bur-
row; but sometimes also a meal is taken

162

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

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 where-
in the captive will never dream of sinking
a well, such work being out of season. Every-
thing then happens out of doors.

Well, while the mother munches, chews, ex-
presses 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 them-
selves, nor put any broken victuals aside for
them. She feeds and the others look on, or
rather remain indifferent to what is happen-
ing. Their perfect quiet during the Lycosa’s
feast points to the possession of a stomach
that knows no cravings.

Then with what are they sustained, during
their seven months’ upbringing on the moth-
er’s back? One conceives a notion of exuda-
tions 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

163

The Life of the Spider

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 recti-
fying the beastie’s expenditure of vital force,
especially when we consider that those re-
serves, themselves so close to nothing. must
be economized in view of the silk. a material
of the highest importance, of which a plenti-
ful use will be made presently. There must
be other powers at play in the tiny animal’s
machinery.

Total abstinence from focd could be under-
stood if it were accompanied by inertia: im-
mobility is not life. But the young Lycosz,
although usually quiet on their mother’s back,
are at all times ready for exercise and for
agile swarming. When they fall from the ma-

164

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

ternal perambulator, they briskly pick them-
selves up, briskly scramble up a leg and make
their way to the top. It is a splendidly nim-
ble 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 neigh-
bours. As a matter of fact, there is no abso-
lute rest for them. Now physiology teaches
us that not a fibre works without some ex-
penditure of energy. The animal, which can
be likened, in no small measure, to our indus-
trial machines, demands, on the one hand, the
renovation of its organism, which wears out
with movement, and, on the other, the mainte-
nance of the heat transformed into action.
We can compare it with the locomotive-en-
gine. 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

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The Life of the Spider

a supply of ‘energy-producing food’; in
other words, he lights a few shovelfuls of coal
in its inside. This heat will produce mechan-
ical 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, in-
creases the body, up to a certain limit, and re-
news 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 fur-
nishes 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 Lycosa, they grow
no larger until the period of their emancipa-
tion. 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.

166

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

In this respect, the prolonged abstinence pre-
sents no difficulty. But there remains the ques-
tion of energy-producing food, which is indis-
pensable, for the little Lycosa moves, when
necessary, and very actively at that. To what
shall we attribute the heat expended upon ac-
tion, when the animal takes absolutely no
nourishment ?

cin idea suggests itself. We say to our-
selves 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 in-
termediary of food and passing through the
ignominious circuit of gastric chemistry,
could not this solar energy penetrate the ani-

167

The Life of the Spider

mal 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 re-
mote reality? The problem is one of the
most important that science can set us. Let
us first hear the evidence of the young Lycose
regarding its possibilities.

For seven months, without any material

168

The Narbonne Lycosa: The Family

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 drag-
ging 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, car-
rying her young, comes up from the burrow,
leans on the kerb and spends long hours bask-
ing 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 dis-
perse; 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,

169

The Life of the Spider

mother and sons go down again, surfeited with
solar emanations. The feast of energy at the
Sain Tavern is finished for the day. It is re-
peated in the same wav dail-, if the weather
be mild, until the hour of emancipation comes,
followed by the first mouthfuls of solid food.

i70

CHAPTER VI

THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE CLIMBING-
INSTINCT

HE 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 swarm-
ing burden, the mother Lycosa is outside her
burrow, squatting on the parapet at the en-
trance. 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 be reason-

v1

The Life of the Spider

ably be expected from the eminently earthly
habits of the Lycose; 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 trel-
lis-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 thev
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

172

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct

spreading right up to the top, and place it
above the cage. The little Lycose 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 em-
bark upon them and form garlands which the
least breath of air swings daintily. The
thread is invisible when it does not come be-
tween the eyes and the sun: and the whole sug-
gests 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 fa-
vourable. they can land at great distances.
Their departure is thus continued for a week
or two, in bands more or less numerous, ac-
cording 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

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The Life of the Spider

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; per-
haps, also, the weight of the little ones ham-
pered her movements and made her more dis-
creet 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, buzz-
ing at the entrance of her burrow; she comes
and takes from my fingers the savoury Locust,
the portly Anoxia*; 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

*A species of Beetle-—Translator's Note.

174

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct
fourth year. In the winter, in the fields, ]

used to find large mothers, carting their
young, and others not much more than half
their size. The whole series, therefore, repre-
sented three generations. And now, in my
earthenware pans, after the departure of the
family, the old matrons still carry on and con-
tinue as strong as ever. Every outward ap-
pearance tells us that, after becoming great-
grandmothers, they still keep themselves fit
for propagating their species.

The facts correspond with these anticipa-
tions. 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 recog-
nizing 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

1735

The Life of the Spider

according to rule, would have been emanci-
pated, they die. The mighty Spider of the
waste-lands, therefore, attains to an even more
patriarchal age than her neighbour the Sacred
Beetle’; 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 with-
out a certain surprise that we see the little
Lycosz, at the first moment of their emanci-
pation, hasten to ascend the heights. Destined
to live on the ground, amidst the short grass,
and afterwards to settle in their 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

"Ci. Insect Life, ty J. H. Fabre. translated by the au-
thor of Mademoitzeile Mori: chap:. i and ii; The Lite
and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri Fabre, translated

by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i to iv.—
Translator's Note.

176

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct

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 habitat is under-
ground, she is not so striking at swarming-
time, because the youngsters, instead of all mi-
grating 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, L1N.), 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 Ly-
cosa’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 bal-
loon-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

177

The Life of the Spider

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 tfeit,
through which the new-born Spiders will eas-
ily work their wav. 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 maxing
a shallow saucer of sufficient thickness to dis-
pense with subsequent corrections. The proc-
ess 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.
Fach time, the spinnerets add a bit of thread
to the carpet already made.

When the requisite thickness 's obtained. the
mother empties her ovaries, in one continuous
flow, into the centre of the bowl. Glued to-
gether by their inherent moisture, the eggs,

178

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct

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 un-
broken sphere.

The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira,
those experts in the manufacture of rainproof
textures, lay their eggs high up. on brush-
wood and bramble, without shelter of any
Kind. The thick material of the wallets is
enough to protect the eggs from the inclemen-
cies 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. Ina heap of stones, well ex-
posed to the sun, she will choose a large slab,
to serve as a roof. She lodges her pill un-
derneath 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

7

The Life of the Spider

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 addi-
tional 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 lit-
tle 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 emi-
grants from the road which I have laid out

180

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct

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 sec-
ond 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 com-
ing. 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 bam-
boo climbing-pole. leave their respective wal-
lets. 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 ap-
pearance.

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 posses-

181

The Life of the Spider

sion 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 glob-
ular 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 ex-
tended 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 meas-
ure. 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

182

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct

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 com-
pact 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.

Assembled 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 them-
selves, stage by stage, on both bamboos, until
they reach the summit. 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

183

The Life of the Spider

dispersal presents no difficulties. Each emi-
grant leaves at his own good time and travels
as suits him best.

My devices have changed these conditions
somewhat. ly two bristling poles stand at a
distance from the surrounding shrubs, espe-
cially 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 posi-
tion 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 the nets are spread; it be-
comes 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.

184

Narbonne Lycosa: Climbing-Instinct

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, wish-
ing 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 clam-
bers 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

185,

The Life of the Spider

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 comes suddenly, at the
hour of need, and no less suddenly vanishes.

CHAPTER VII
THE SPIDERS’ EXODUS

GEEDS, when ripened in the fruit, are dis-

seminated, 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

187

The Life of the Spider

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 dis-
tance. 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 ex-
pressive 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 up, press
upon the grains and eject them.

Light seeds, especially those of the order
of Composite, have aeronautic apparatus—
tufts, plumes, fly-wheels—which keep them up
in the air and enable them to take distant voy-
ages. In ths 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.

188

The Spiders’ Exodus

Next to the tuft, the wing is the most satis-
factory 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, cran-
nies 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 dis-
semination 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 dande-
lion-plume and the catapult of the squirting
cucumber.

Let us consider, in particular, the Epeirz,

189

The Life of the Spider

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 fas-
ciata, \WALCK.), so prettily belted with yel-
low, black and silvery white. Her nest. a mar-
vel of gracefulness, is a satin bag, shaped like
atiny pear. Its neck ends in a concave mouth-
piece 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,’ what we find there: Jet us retell the
story. Under the outer wrapper, which is as
stout as our woven stuffs and, moreover, per-
fectly waterproof. is a russet eiderdown of ex-
quisite 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

*Chapter I].—Translator’s Note.
190

The Spiders’ Exodus

edifice an animal fruit, a germ-casket, a cap-
sule to be compared with that of the plants?
Only, the Epeira’s wallet, instead of seeds,
holds eggs. The difference is more ap-
parent than real, for egg and grain are
one.

How will this living fruit, ripening in the
heat beloved of the Cicadz, 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 enclo-
sure. 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

I9l

The Life of the Spider

my find corresponds with the Cross or Diadem
Spider (Epeira diadema, WALCK.).

When the sun reaches this part of the en-
closure, 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 maneuvres. 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. Noth-
ing 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,

ig2

The Spiders’ Exodus

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 de-
parture 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 tele-
scope shows us endless galaxies of stars. The
immeasurably small and the immeasurably
large are alike in appearance. It is all a mat-
ter of distance.

But the living nebula is not composed of
fixed stars; on the contrary, its specks are in

193

The Life of the Spider

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 extrac-
tion, 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 approach-
ing 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, 1 manage to see, at mo-
ments, behind the tiny animal, a thread resem-
bling a ray of light, which appears for an in-
stant, gleams and disappears. Behind, there-

194

The Spiders’ Exodus

fore, 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 crea-
ture 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 necessa-
rily have a bridge whereby to cross the inter-
vening 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 eves. is able to s¢e 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.

105

The Life of the Spider

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 un-
rolled 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
bow] of a pipe whirled up in the air.

This floating thread has but to touch any
object in the neighbourhood and it will re-
main 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 mo-
ment, the draught exists between the door of
my study and the window, both of which are

196

The Spiders’ Exodus

open. It is so slight that I do not feel it; 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 win-
dow. This is the draught that carries the
threads with it and enables the Spiders to em-
bark 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 mi-
gration becomes impossible.

It is soon resumed, but in a direction where-
of 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,

197

The Life of the Spider

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. {fy 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 cha-
fing-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.

198

The Spiders’ Exodus

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 num-
bers, 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. Ina
few minutes most of them are up, clinging to
the ceiling.

Not all of them reach it. J 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
thev are capable. The more they struggle up-
wards, the faster they come down. This drift-
ing, 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 onlw at the lower end. As
long as it is of 2 fair length, it is able, al-
though moving, to bear the minute animal's
weight. But, as the Spider climbs. the float
becomes shorter in proportion; and the ume
comes when a balance is struck between the

i99

The Life of the Spider

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 thread.
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.

Asa rule, the ceiling is reached. It is twelve
feet high. The little Spider is able, there-
fore, 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 pro-
vided! 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

200

The Spiders’ Exodus

of the sun does not always enable us to dis-
cern them.

We must not let all the climbers be stranded
on the ceiling, an inhospitable region, where
most of them will doubtless perish, being un-
able 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. Dan-
delion-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 win-
dow, 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,

201

The Life of the Spider

perhaps. Let us wish them a prosperous
journey.

The problem of dissemination is now
solved. What would happen if matters, in-
stead of being brought about by my wiles, took
place in the open fields? The answer is ob-
vious. 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 indus-
try. Asa receptacle for the eggs, she weaves
a mere pill of silk. Her work is modest in-
deed beside the Banded Epeira’s balloons. I
looked to these to supply me with fuller docu-
ments. I had laid up a store by rearing some

202

The Spiders’ Exodus

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 ap-
proaches. 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 appear-
ance 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-

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The Life of the Spider

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 out-
side.

Maturity is achieved in the exquiste 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 hun-
dred. And all this comes out of a purse no
larger than a pea. Bv what miracle is there
room for such a family’? How do those thou-
sands of legs manage to grow without strain-
ing themselves?

The egg-bag, as we learnt in Chapter IJ, is
a short cylinder rounded at the bottom. It is

204

The Spiders’ Exodus

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 fab-
ric 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 pro-
jecting 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 in-
serted, if, moreover, the birth of all the fam-
ily took place at the same time, we might
think that the door is forced open by the liv-
ing 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

205

The Life of the Spider

welded; besides, the hatching is effected
in small batches, incapable of the least
exertion. There must, therefore, be a sponta-
neous bursting, or dehiscence, independent of
the assistance of the youngsters and similar to
that of the sced-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-caskez 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 bucst-
ing-gear. As long as the eggs remain
unhatched, the door, solidly fixed in its
frame, holds good: as soon as the liztle ones
swarm and want to get out, it opens of
itself.

Come June and July. beloved of the C-
cade, no less beloved of the young Spiders
who are anxious to be of. It were difficult in.
deed tor them to work their way through the
thick shell of the balloon. For the second

206

The Spiders’ Exodus

time, a spontaneous dehiscence seems called
for. Where will it be effected ?

The idea occurs off-hand that it will take
place long the edges of the top cover. Re-
member the details given in an earlier chap-
ter. 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 finish-
ing touch to the work, we expect to find an in-
complete 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 destroy-
ing the building from top to bottom. The
dehiscence takes places elsewhere, at some
point on the sides. Nothing informs us, noth-
ing suggests to us that it will occur at one
place rather than another.

Moreover, to tell the truth, it is not a de-
hiscence 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,

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The Life of the Spider

heated by the sun, causes this rupture. The
signs of pressure from within are manifest:
the tatters of the torn fabric are turned out-
wards; also, a wisp of the russet eiderdown
that fills the wallet invariably straggles
through the breach. In the midst of the pro-
truding 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 un-
der 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 emer-
gence of the young does not take place, unless
I myself 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

208

The Spiders’ Exodus

things occur in the free sun-bath of the fields.
Unsheltered, among the bushes, the wallet of
the Banded Epeira, when the July heat ar-
rives, 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 major-
ity 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, 1 in his own good time, without hurry-
ing. Besides, a solemn action has to be per-
formed before the emigration. The ani-
mal 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 neigh-
bouring twigs and there, in the full heat of
the sun, proceed with the work of dissemina-
tion. 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

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The Life of the Spider

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 ab-
sence of a crowd.

To my intense disappointment, the Silky
Epeira does not either indulge in a tumultu-
ous and dashing exodus. Let me remind you
of her handiwork, the handsomest of the ma-
ternal 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 es-
pecially a thicker material than the Banded
Epeira’s balloon, for which reason a sponta-
neous 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 mechan-
ism also seems to work by the expansion of
the heated air, for we again see a partial emis-
sion 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

210

The Spiders’ Exodus

packed within would sprain their legs in ex-
tracting them from their sheaths. The fam-
ily, 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 threadv air-ship; the
journey is accomplished by modest stages.

Hanging to her thread, the Spider lets her-
self 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, see-

21r

The Life of the Spider

ing 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 pen-
dulum 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 wonder-
ful 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.

212

CHAPTER VIII
THE CRAB SPIDER

@ bis Spider that showed me the exodus
in all its magnificence is known officially
as [homisus 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 ris-
ing tide of a barbarous vocabulary which,
under the pretence of progress, stifles real
knowledge? It will relegate the whole busi-
ness 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

213

The Life of the Spider

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 side-
ways; she also has fore-legs stronger than her
hind-legs. The only thing wanting to com-
plete 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 catch-
ing 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 de-
scribed the contests between the victim
and her executioner, at greater length, else-
where.

The Bee appears, seeking no quarrel, intent
upon plunder. She tests the flowers with her
tongue; she selects a spot that will vield a
good return. Soon she is wrapped up in her

214

The Crab Spider

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 be-
hind 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 paralyzing,
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 re-
volted me. Why should there be workers to
feed idlers, why sweated to keep sweaters in
luxurv? 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

215

The Life of the Spider

a model of devotion where her family is con-
cerned.

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 the morsel be tender and
savoury.

According to the etymology of her name—
Oépeyé, a cord—the Thomisus should be like
the ancient lictor, who bound the sufferer to
the stake. The comparison is not inappropri-
ate 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 recollec-
tion of the regular tactics, our Spider’s god-
father overlooked the exception; he did not
know of the perfidious mode of attack which
renders the use of a bowstring superfluous.

Nor is the second name of onustus—loaded,
burdened, freighted—any too happily chosen.

216

The Crab Spider

The fact that the Bee-huntress carries a heavy
paunch is no reason to refer to this as a dis-
tinctive 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 nomen-
clator: the dictionary is becoming exhausted
and the constant flood that requires cata-
loguing 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

217

The Life of the Spider

festivals, in the waste-lands of the South. The
murderess of the Bees is of a chilly constitu-
tion; 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 re-
placed, 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
outstretched, 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 un-
wieldy paunch fashioned like a squat pyra-
mid and embossed on the base, on either side,

218

The Crab Spider

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 ara-
besques. A narrow pale-green ribbon sume-
times 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 blend-
ing of its hues. Novice fingers, which shrink
from touching any other Spider, allow them-
selves 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 Chafiinch 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 pos-
sessing a few dead leaves, which curl into a

219

The Life of the Spider

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 liv-
ing 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 re-
mains 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

220

The Crab Spider

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 dis-
lodge 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 dis-
plays the same pluck and the same devotion;
and also the same denseness in distinguishing
her property from that of others. The Ly-
cosa 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 me-
chanical 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

2ar

The Life of the Spider

same kind, she settles upon it and never stirs
from it, even though the different arrange-
ment 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 an-
other’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 frag-
ments 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

222

The Crab Spider

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, be-
coming more and more wrinkled. What is
the withered thing waiting for, before expir-
ing? 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 te
split automatically and to scatter the young-
sters and their flossy mattress all mixed up
together. The Thomisus’ wallet, sheathed in

223

The Life of the Spider

leaves over the greater part of its surface,
never bursts; nor does the lid rise, so carefully
is it sealed down. Nevertheless, after the de-
livery 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

224

The Crab Spider

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 win-
dow. Soon, the exodus commences, but slowly
and unsteadily. There are hesitations, retro-
gressions, 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 brush-
wood 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 thou-
sands of legs are drawing the hemp from the
spinnerets. I do not see the ropes manu-
factured 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 per-

225

The Life of the Spider

ceived 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, in-
dividual 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
226

The Crab Spider

sparks of that living firework. What a glo
rious send-off! What an entrance into the
world! Clutching its aeronautic thread, the
ninute 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 con-
tending 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 Is

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: BUILDING THE WEB

THE fowling-snare is one of man’s ingen-

ious 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 Sambé, an irresistible
tempter, hops about and flaps his wings in ap-
parent freedom. A bit of twine fastens him
to his convict’s stake. When, worn with fa-
tigue and driven desperate by his vain at-
tempts to get away, the sufferer lies down flat

228

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

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 work-
ing 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 excite-
ment in the cages. The Chaffinches chirp their
rallying-cry :

*Pinck! Pinck!

There is something happening in the sky.
The Sambé, quick! They are coming, the sim-
pletons: they swoop down upon the treacher-
ous 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 mar-
ket, 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

229

The Life of the Spider

surpasses it when, on patient study, the main
features of its supreme perfection stand re-
vealed. What refinement of art for a mess of
Flies! Nowhere, in the whole animal king-
dom, has the need to eat inspired a more cun-
ning industry. If the reader will meditate
upon the description that follows, he will cer-
tainly 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 com-
plex 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 observa-
tional 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 charv of his time,
at least it involves no distant and speculative

230

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

research. The smallest garden contains
Epeire, all accomplished weavers.

In my enclosure, which I have stocked care-
fully 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 fasci-
ata WALcK.), the Silky Epeira (E. sericea,
Watck.), the Angular Epeira (E. angulata,
Watck.), the Pale-tinted Epeira (E. pallida,
Outv.), 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, accord-
ing 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

231

The Life of the Spider

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 Epeire
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 re-
moved 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.

232

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

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 con-
ceal 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 posi-
tion, drawing it from her wire-mill with the
combs attached to her hind-legs. This pre-
paratory 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

233

The Life of the Spider

here and there. The result is a scanty and
disordered scaffolding.

Is disordered the word? Perhaps not.
The Epeira’s eye, more experienced in mat-
ters 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 con-
ditions: it marks out a flat. free and perpen-
dicular 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 frame-work, as we shall see
elsewhere.

A special thread, the foundation of the
real net, is stretched across the area so capri-

234

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

iously circumscribed. It is distinguished from
the others by its isolation, its position at a
distance from any twig that might interfere
with its swaving 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 sign-post, 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

235

The Life of the Spider

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 al-
ready placed. She goes along this margin for
some distance from the point at which she
landed, fixes her thread to the frame and re-
turns 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 be-
tween 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! sign-post. In the case of each
radius laid. the surplus is treated in the same
fashion, so that the sign-post 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 nig-
gardly 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

236

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

‘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 sug-
gests that the radii are spun in the same order
in which they figure in the web, each follow-
ing 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 pro-
ficient 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 forth-
with neutralized by another in the opposite
direction. This is what our statics teach us

237

The Life of the Spider

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 beautifullv-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 Epeire, though weighted
with a wallet and tottering on threads shaken
by the wind, effect the delicate division with-
out stopping to think. Ther 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 approx-
imately equal; they satisfy the demands of

238

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

the eye, but cannot stand the test of strict
measurement. M{athematical 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 sign-
post and the bits of thread left over. Sta-
tioned 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, mov-

239

The Life of the Spider

ing 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 Epeire, is one
centimetre.”

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 ex-
tremely delicate business which she is now
about to undertake.

But, before that, one last task becomes
essential. The area occupied by the spokes is

? 39 inch.—Translator’s Note.

240

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

very irregular, being marked out by the sup-
ports of the branch, which are infinitely
variable. There are angular niches which, if
skirted too closely, would disturb the sym-
metry of the web about to be constructed.
The Epeira needs an exact space wherein
gradually to lay her spiral thread. More-
over, 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. Cling-
ing on the one hand to the radii, on the other
to the chords of the auviliary spiral, the
Epeira covers the same ground as when lay-
ing the spiral, but in the opposite direction:
formerly, she moved away from the centre;
now she moves towards it and with closer and

24

The Life of the Spider

more numerous circles. She starts from the
base of the auxiliary spiral, near the frame.

What follows is dificult 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 imple-
ments, 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 spin-
neret 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 's to be fixed. As soon as the radius
is touched, the thread szicks to it by its own
glue. There are no slow operations. no
knots: the fixing is done of itself.

Meanwhile, turning by narrow degrees,

242

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

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 sym-
metry 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 reg-
ularity 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 fix-
ing 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

243

The Life of the Spider

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 :s no doubt intended to be re-
stored to the silken treasury. It is a tough
mouthful, difficult for the stomach to elabo-
rate; 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. {en are born right-

handed. Thanks to a lack of symmetry that
244

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

has never been explained, our right side is
stronger and readier in its movements than
our left. The inequality is especially notice-
able in the two hands. Our language ex-
presses 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

245

The Life of the Spider

animals. Can dissmymetry, 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 in-
terrupts 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, gyra-
tion in one direction being employed as well
as gyration in the other. we see that, when
making her repeated webs, the same Epeira

246

The Garden Spiders: Building the Web

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 exceed-
ingly delicate operation calling for the dis-
play 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, be-
comes convinced that the Epeira is highly
ambidextrous.

CHAPTER

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: MY NEIGHBOUR

GE does not modify the Epe‘ra’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 ‘s 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,
WaALcK.), clad in grey and girdled with two
dark stripes that meet in a point at the back.

248

The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 construc-
tion 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.

249

The Life of the Spider

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
shapé. 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?
Iam 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
frame-work of the building. All day in-
visible, crouching amid the cypress-leaves, the
Spider, at about eight o’clock in the evening,

250

The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

solemnly emerges from her retreat and makes
for the top of a branch. In this exalted posi-
tion, 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 spin-
nerets. Just as the rope-maker obtains the
even output of his hemp by walking back-
wards, 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 ex-
pand 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-ree] ceases working.
The Spider turns round, clutches the line

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The Life of the Spider

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 con-
sidered 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

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The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

a fibre to it on each journey. Whether I help
or not, this forms the ‘suspension-cable,’ the
main piece of the frame-work. 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 constit-
uent 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
dificult matter, because the success of the en-
terprise 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

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The Life of the Spider

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 em-
ploys 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 un-
furled, 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

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The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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.

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The Life of the Spider

It is unnecessary to go over the construc:
tion 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 scasoic-
ing of temporary rungs, soon doomed to dis-
appear: 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 ex-
ceedingly 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 imper-
turbablyz 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 trom 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, commemorat-

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The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

ing the Finding of St. Stephen. This is Tues-
day, 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 hul-
labaloo of the crowd, the reports of the
mortars, the crackle of Roman candles burst-
ing 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 piane-trees failed to trouble the concert of
the Cicade: 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

237

The Life of the Spider

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, be-
fore 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. Some-
times, 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
Epeire 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 sun-
set is the rule with them. And there is little

258

The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 Epeire think it
wise to produce durable work and _ to
strengthen their toils with a cross-ribbon.
The other Epeire, who are put to less ex-
pense 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;

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The Life of the Spider

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. Noth-
ing 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 soon 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

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The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 assem-
bling the wreckage would be a far-reaching
feat of prowess, a very fine proof of gleams
of intelligence, capable of performing ra-
tional 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, ap-
parently, looking into the matter very closely.
They seem able to dispense with the con-
scientious 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,

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The Life of the Spider

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, pro-
duces 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 Eveira 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

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The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 expecta-
tion. The spinstress made no further en-
deavour 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 Epeire
when walking. It was not a deliberate mend-
ing, 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

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The Life of the Spider

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. ly 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. Mfotionless 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. Neces-
sity, 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

264

The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 where-
in 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 full 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. Dur-
ing the struggle, a section of the web has torn
under the weaver's very eves. 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 favorable
to darning, the Epeira does no mending at
all. She flings aside her prey, after taking a

265

The Life of the Spider

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 spin-
stresses 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 them-
selves 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

266

The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 contin-
uous substance. Among this number is the
House Spider (Tegenaria domestica, L1y.).
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 plat-
form whereon the Spider, attending to the
affairs of her estate, goes her rounds, espe-
cially 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 Epeirz, also
works differently. Here are no viscous
threads. but plain toils. rendered invisible by
their very number. If a Gnat rush into the
perfidious entanglement, he is caught at once;
and the more he struggles the more firmly is

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The Life of the Spider

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 re-
mains 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 move-
ment of the web, when this part is touched,
proves the presence of an obstacle.

Here, the matter would appear obvious.
The House Szider has mended her work dur-
ing 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 more
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

268

The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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 direc-
tion 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 Procession-
ary of the Pine,’ 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 Processionanes upholster

2The Processionaries are Moth-caterpillars that feed
on verions lezves and march in file, laying a silken trail
as they ga—Transazor’s Noi.

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The Life of the Spider

the breach even as they upholster the un-
touched 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 lavs 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 :: happen that the hole is even-
tually closed, this fortunate result is the out-
come not of a special purpose, but of an
unvarying method of work.

Besides, it is evident that, if the Spicer
really wished to mend her web, a!! her
endeavours would be concentratei 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.
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The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour

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. XJ

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE LIME-SNARE

HE spiral network of the Epeire
possesses contrivances of fearsome cun-
ning. 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.

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The Garden Spiders: The Lime-Snare

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 diapha-
nous 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 con-
tact, 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

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The Life of the Spider

resume their original form. They lengthen
by unrolling their twist, they shorten by roll-
ing 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

274

The Garden Spiders: The Lime-Snare

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 ker legs.

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The Life of the Spider

In my boyhood, when a troop of us would
go, on Thursdays,* to try and catch a Gold-
finch in the hemp-‘telds, we used, before cover-
ing 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 con-
tact 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

*The weekly half-holiday in French schools.—Trans-
later's Note.
276

The Garden Spiders: The Lime-Snare

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

277

The Life of the Spider

outspread, ready to mark the least quiver in
the net. It is here, again, that she taxes her
meals, often long-drawn-out. when the joint
is a substantial one; it is hither the: after
trussing and nibbling it, she drags her prev at
the end of a thread, to consume it at her ease
on a non-viscous mat. -\s a hunting-rost and
refectory, the Epeira has contrived a central
space, free from glue.

-\s for the glue itself, it is hardly possible
to study its chemical properties, because che
quantity is so slight. The microscope shows
it trickling from the broken threads in the
form of a transparent and more or less gran-
ular 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.

ack

275

The Garden Spiders: The Lime-Snare

In twenty-four hours, the threads have lost
their contents and are reduced to almost in-
visible 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 perco-
lates 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 Epeire weave at very early hours,
long before dawn. Should the air turn misty,
they sometimes leave that part of the task
unfinished: thev build the general framework,
they lay the spokes, they even draw the aunili-
ary spiral, for all these parts are unaffected by
excess of moisture; but they are very careful
not to work at the limethreads, 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

279

The Life of the Spider

compensating advantages. Both Epeira,
when hunting by day, attect 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 stiz and lifeless fila-
ments. 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. Ihe 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 stick-
iness decreases. What bird-catcher could vie
with the Garden Spider in the art of laying
lime-snares? And all this industry and cun-
ning 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. Wee find that,
in one sitting, each time that she remakes her
web, the Angular Epeira produces some

280

The Garden Spiders: The Lime-Snare

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 manufac-
tured something like three-quarters of a mile
of this tubular thread, rolled into a tight twist
and bulging with glue.

T 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 mat-
ter 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 frame-
work 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 X11
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 con-
stantly 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

282

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

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 cap-
tured 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 per-
ceive 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,
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The Life of the Spider

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
Epeire 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 succeds. 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 en-
quiries, 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
lumbersome object out of the web.

There are also clever ones. Like the

284

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

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 am-
bush. 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 ex-
tremely shortsighted. 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.

Bs

The Life of the Spider

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 out-
side the plane of the web and ends at the am-
bush where the Spider lurks all day. Except
at the central point, there is no connection be-
tween 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 re-
pair 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.

286

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

Why, moreover, does this line always start
in the centre of the sticky network and never
elsewhere? 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

287

The Life of the Spider

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 re-
quired. The network is fastened to the
branches by a host of lines, all of them very
easy tocross. 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 feel-
ing the signalling-thread, broken by my

288

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

scissors, as taut as usual under her legs, she
comes to enquire 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 signal-
ling-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 forme. One morn-
ing, 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

280

The Life of the Spider

heels by athread. The final sacrifice will take
place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary.

A few days later, I renew my experiment
under the same condizions. but, this time, I
first cut the signalling-thread. In vain I select
a large Dragon-fly. 2 very restless prisoner:
in vain I exert my patience: the Srider does
not come down all day. Her telegraph being
broken, she receives no notice of what ‘s hap-
pening nine feet below. The entangled morsel
remains where it lies, not despised, but un-
known. 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 Epeire whom I have had the
opportunity of examining simplifies the
system, while retaining the essential mechan-
ism of a transmission-thread. This ts the
Crater Epeira (Epeira cratera, WWALCK.), 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 fore-

290

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

legs 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 Epeira, is of a fair size and always
very near the bow! 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 con-
stantly 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 hap-
pens. It has a double office: it forms part of
the Catherine-wheel supporting the lime-
threads and it warns the Epeira by its vibra-
tions. 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 per-
manent 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

201

The Life of the Spider

long slumbers. In their youth, the Epeira,
who are then very wide-awake, know nothing
of the art of telegraphy. Besides, their web,
a short-lived work whereof hardly a trace re-
mains 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 suf-
ficient 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 to-

292

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

gether 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 clever-
ness. 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 pro-
cures her this agreeable shock and what fol-
lows. 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,

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The Life of the Spider

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-fiy
and a Locust. The latter kicks out with his
long, spurred shanks; the other fiutters 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 vi-
bration to the signalling-thread. Nevertheless,

204

Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire

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 dis-
tinguishes between the vibration proceeding
from a prisoner and the mere shaking caused
by the wind.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: PAIRING AND
HUNTING

OTWITHSTANDING the importance

of the subject, I shall not enlarge upon

the nuptials of the Epeire, 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 un-
usual be afoot 7

Even so. I see hastening up from the
neighbouring bushes and embarking on the

296

Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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,’ 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

Cf. Social Life im Hae reeset TF orld, by J. H. Fabre,

translated by Bernard Miall: chap. xiv—Trarslator’s
Noite.

207

The Life of the Spider

little nearer. fore 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 heis! 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 cer-
tain 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. Grip-
ping 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

298

Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

he remained, he would presumably be eaten.
These exercises on the tight-rope are not re-
peated. 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 Epire 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 any:
thing 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

299

The Life of the Spider

bit of straw. You cannot have a swing with-
out an impulse of some sort. The terror-
stricken Spider, who wishes to strike terror in-
to 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 prob-
lem 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
Epeire! 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

300

Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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, in-
quisitively: I too, lantern in hand, am peep-
ing. 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
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The Life of the Spider

Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rose-
maries in the enclosure. shall show us in broad
daylight 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 'ts tarsi
and pulls towards itself, the treacherous
thread follows, unwinds slightly and, without
letting go or breaking, vields 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

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Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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 revolv-
ing 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 em-

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The Life of the Spider

ployed. With a quick movement, the Spider
herself turns round about the motionless in-
sect, crossing the web firs: at the top and then
at the bottom and gradually placing the fasten-
ings 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 danger-
ous g2me: 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 Epeire. 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 spin-
nerets 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

304

Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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 paralyzes 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 contin-
ous spray of silk, at a safe distance. When
ali is used up, there is more to come.

Sull, 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 de-

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The Life of the Spider

priving the beast of all power of movement,
she went up to it and turned her corpulent
victim as she would have done with a med:um-
sized Moth.

But with the Praying Mantis, sticking oat
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 dry-
ing up the silk-glands. A capture of th's kind
is ruinous. It is true that, except when I in-
terfered, 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 in-
sect 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, 2 Clothes-moth, for
instance, it is consumed on the spot, at the
place where it was captured. But. fora 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

06

Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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 pre-
viously administered to the silk-swathed
captive. Does the Spider Kill the patient with
a view to avoiding unseasonable jerks, pro-
tests so disagreeable at dinner-time? Several
reasons make me doubt it. In the first place,

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The Life of the Spider

the attack is so much veiled as to have all the
appearance of a mere kiss. Besides, it is made
anvwhere, at the firs: spot that offers. The
expert slayers' employ methods of the highest
precision: they give a stab in the neck. or un-
der 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 in-
serts her fangs at random, as the Bee does her
sting. She does not select one spot rather
than another: she bites indifferently at what-
ever 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

*Ci. Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre, transizte¢ by the
author of Mademoiselle Mort: chap. v.—Translator’s

Note.
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Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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 life
less 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

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The Life of the Spider

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, fol-
lowed by a second. Not one of them touches
the leaf of salad: their appetite has disap-
peared. Their movements become more
uncertain, as though hampered by irresistible
torpor. On the second dav, they are dead,
every one irrecoverably dead.

The Epeir2. therefore, does not inconti-
nently kill her prey with her delicate bite; she
poisons it so as to produce a gradual weak-
ness, 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 pzralyzers or slayers.
Here there is no display of anatomical science.
Unacquainted with the patient's structure, the

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Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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
mention an Angular Epeira grappling with the
largest Dragon-fly in my district (.Eshna
grandis, L1n.). I myself had entangled in the
web this head of big game, which is not often
captured by the Epeira. 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 precau-
tions, 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 per-
functory 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,

gir

The Life of the Spider

so sharp-pointed are the Epeira’ Ss weapons,
was enough, with a little insistence, to kill
the powerful animal. Proportionately, the
Rattlesnake, the Horned Viper, the Trigono-
cephalus and other ill-famed serpents produce
less paralyzing effects upon their victims.

And these Epeirz, 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 dearly 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

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Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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 else-
where, after which the tattered husk, placed
bodily in the press of the mandibles, would
have been chewed, rechewed and finally re-
duced to a pill, which the sated Spider throws
up. This would have been the end of the

3t3

The Life of the Spider

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 prevs on everything, down
to her own kind, should the occasion offer.

Had she to operate according to individual
structure, she would need an anatomical dic-
tionary; and instinct is essentially unfamiliar
with generalities: its knowledge is always con-
fined to limited points. The Cerceres know
their Weevils and their Buprestis-beetles abso-
lutely; the Sphex their Grasshoppers, their
Crickets and their Locusts; the Scoliz? their

*The Scolia is a Digger-wasp, like the Cerceris and
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Garden Spiders: Pairing and Hunting

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’ 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 special-
izing in it. The Epeira, who, being omniv-
orous, 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.

the Sphex, and feeds her larve on the erchs of the
Cetonia, ar Rase-chafer, and the Oryeres, or Rhinoceros
Beetle. Ci. The Live amd Lore of the Insect, by J. Henri
Fabre. translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattas:
chap. xi—Troasaion’s Noize.

*Ci. Soceat Live in the Insect? Werid, by J. H. Fabre,
translated by Bernard Miall: chan si, in which the
mame is given, by a primter’s error, as Phiamihus avi-
porws.—Translaior’s Nie.

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The Life of the Spider

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 zoo-
logical 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.

316

CHAPTER XIV

THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE QUESTION
OF PROPERTY

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, in-
vented for the express purpose. To protect
the book, we have none but farcical means.
Place a few bricks one atop the other; join

317

The Life of the Spider

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 argu-
ment,” 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 larve 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,

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Garden Spiders: Question of Property

must we wait for the ocean-plains of the
southern hemisphere to flow to our side, chang-
ing the face of continents and renewing the
glacial period of the Reindeer and the Mam-
moth? 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 mo-
rality 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 swift-
ness 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
trade-marks and distinguish it from that of
her fellows?

I bring about a change of webs between
two neighbouring Banded Epeire. No sooner
is either placed upon the strange net than she
makes for the central floor, settles herself

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The Life of the Spider

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 affect 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 dis-
similar; 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 sud-
den change and decamp interror. 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 un-
familiar web is not wrecked to the extent of
being unserviceable, they make no attempt to

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Garden Spiders: Question of Property

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 con-
fusion. Wishing to have subjects for study
within my daily reach and to save myself the
trouble of casual excursions, I collect different
Epeire 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 night-
fall 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

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The Life of the Spider

some one else’s: it is all the same to them.
I come upon a Banded aia newly im-
ported, making for the web of a S:ikv Epeira
who has been my guest for some days since.
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 be-
comes the property of the s-zanger. who uses
it, if it have not suttered too much in the
contest.

There is here a shadow of an excuse. The
two Spiders were of different species: and the
struggle for lite often leads to <hese exter-
minations among such as are not akin. What
would hap pren if the two belonged <0 the same
species ? Te! ‘s easily seen. I cannot rely upon
spontaneous invasions, which may be rare
under normal conditions. and I myself place a
Banded Eve‘ra on her kinswoman’s web. A

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Garden Spiders: Question of Property

furious attack is made forthwith. Victory,
after hanging for a moment in the balance,
is once again decided in the stranger's fa-
vour. 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 indi-
viduals; but we no longer eat one another:
the custom has grown obsolete since we dis-
covered an acceptable substitute in the mutton-
chop.

Let us not. however, blacken the Spider
beyond her deserts. She does not live by war-
ring on her kith ard kin; she does not of her
own accord attempt the conquest of another’s
property. It needs extraordinary circum-
stances 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 mcum and tuum: the thing which
the leg touches at once becomes real estate.
And the intruder, if she be the stronger, ends

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The Life of the Spider

by eating the occupier, a radical means of
cutting short disputes.

Apart from disturbances similiar to those
which I provoke, disturbances that are
possible in the everlas:ing conflict of events,
the Spider, jealous of her own web, seems to
respect the webs of others. She never in-
dulges 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 liveli-
hood 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 Sp'ders 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 ?s 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

324

Garden Spiders: Question of Property

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 ap-
pearance to those oi 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

33

The Life of the Spider
day, in the full light of the sun, thanks to my

mischievous intermediary. The web is de-
serted; 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. with-
out taking any measures against the in-
truder.

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
Silkv 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 int!m-
idate the aggressor. This time, nothing
happens: despite my repeated enticements, the
Spider does not stir a limb. It is as though

326

Garden Spiders: Question of Property

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.

7

The Life of the Spider

The experiment, though repeatedly re-
newed with different subjects, gave me no
other results. Distrustful of a web dissimilar
to her own, if not in structure, at least in stick-
iness, 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 con-
gratulate 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 con-
quered, would be inconvenient to use, because
of the lime-threads, possessing a different de-
gree of stickiness from those which she knows
so well. To risk one’s skin for a thing of

328

Garden Spiders: Question of Property

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 gain-
ing 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 AV
THE LABYRINTH SPIDER

ILE the Epeire, with their gor-
geous 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? inhabit a burrow, like the
Narbonne Lycosa, but of a perfection un-
known 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

*Or Bird Spiders, known also as the American Taran-
tula—Translator’s Note.
330

The Labyrinth Spider

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 op-
posite side to the hinge, props herself against
the wall and holds the door firmly.

Another, the Argvyroneta, 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 com-
ing of the game and keeps herself cool mean-
while. 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 per-
sonal 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. Oppor-
tunity, as we know, is fleeting. The observer,

331

The Life of the Spider

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 mag-
nificent 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 sus-
tained 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 har-
monies of life.

In the fields around, traversed, in these
davs, with a tired step, but still vigilantly
explored, I find nothing so often as the
Labyrinth Spider (.dgelena labyrinthica,
CLERCK.). Not a hedge but shelters a few
at its foot. amid the grass, in quiet, sunny
nooks. In the open country and especially in
hilly places laid bare by the woodman’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 kind-
liness of the supports lend themselves to pro-

332

The Labyrinth Spider

ceedings 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, be-
trayed 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 laby-
rinth, 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

222

wo

The Life of the Spider

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 gradu-
ally 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

334

The Labyrinth Spider

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 inspec-
tion. Lastly come the less-visited expanses,
which consequently have a thinner carpet.

At the bottom of the passage dipping into

335

The Life of the Spider

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 diterent.
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 with-
out 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 screw held
out to it; if necessary, it can be stimulated
with a bit of straw. In this way, I fill my

336

The Labyrinth Spider

cages with subjects that have not been de-
moralized by contusions.

The surface of the crater is not exactly a
snare. It is just possible for the casual pedes-
trian 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 treach-
erous labyrinth.

Look above the web. What a forest of
ropes! It might be the rigging of a ship dis-
abled 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

337

The Life of the Spider

the trap at work? Throw a small Locust into
the rigging. Unable to obtain a steady foot-
hold on that shaky support, he flounders
about; and the more he struggles the more he
entangles his shackles. The Spider, spying oa
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 back-
wards and forwards, make him fall on the
web.

He falls; the other comes and flings herself
upon her prostrate prey. The attack ‘s not
without danger. The Locust is demoralized
rather than tied up; :t !s merely bits of broken
thread that he is trailing from his legs. The
bold assailant does not mind. Without troub-
ling, like the Epeire, to bury her capture un-
der a paralyzing shroud, 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 vulner-
able 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

338

The Labyrinth Spider

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 Cravfish.

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 drink-
ing 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 Laby-

339

The Life of the Spider

rinth 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 con-
trivance, 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

349

The Labyrinth Spider

vain I ransack the bushes that carry the webs:
IT never find aught that realizes my hopes.

I learn the secret at last. I chance upon a
web which, though deserted, is not yet dilapi-
dated, proving that it has been but lately
quitted. Instead of hunting in the brushwood
whereon it rests, let us inspect the neighbour-
hood, 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 invari-
ably 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 curi-
osity. 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, be-
cause 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

Hs

The Life of the Spider

anatomical peculiarities. Each group builds
according to the same set of principles, con-
forming to the laws of a very elementary
system of esthetics; 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 degen-
erates into disorder.

We might discover an interesting subject of
research in the type adopted by each species
when the work is accomplished without hin-
drances. The Banded Epeira weaves the wal-
let 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 ac-
complished 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

342

The Labyrinth Spider

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 Laby-
rinth 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

343

The Life of the Spider

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 open-
ing 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 oc-
cupied 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 back-
wards and forward, recalls the yawning gulf
into which the victims used to fall. Every

34

The Labyrinth Spider

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 sug-
gesting 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 num-
ber 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

5

The Life of the Spider

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 hap-
pens 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 wad-
ding and, lastly, the eggs, numbering about a
hundred and comparatively large, for they
measure a millimetre and a half.*_ 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 glasstube 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

+ 059 inch—Translator’s Note.
346

The Labyrinth Spider

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 -norishment. 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 sur-
mounts 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;

+7

The Life of the Spider

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 else-
where, 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 pre-
cautions whatever to hide it. And a bad
business it proves for her. Her jar provides
me with an Ichneumon! possessed of the inoc-
ulating larding-pin: a Cryptus who, as 2
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

*The Ichneumon-flies are very sma!l insects which
carry long ovipositors. wherewith they iay their eggs in
the eggs of other insects and also, more especially, in
caterpillars. Their parasitic larve live and develop at
the expense of the egg or grub attacked, which degen-
erates in consequence.—Translator’s Note.

348

The Labyrinth Spider

dreads the scoundrelly advent of the pick-
wallet; she provides for it and, to shield her-
self against it as far as possible, chooses a
hiding-place outside her dwelling, far re-
moved from the tell-tale web. When she
feels her ovaries ripen, she shifts her quarters;
she goes off at night to explore the neighbour-
hood 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 nat-
ural wisdom, which advises her to establish
her family in secret places. Very few neglect
this precaution; each, in her own manner, con-
ceals the eggs she lays.

In the case of the Labyrinth Spider, the
protection of the brood is complicated by

39

The Life of the Spider

another condition. In the vast majority of
instances, the eggs, once lodged in a favour-
able spot, are abandoned to themselves, left
to the chances of good or ill fortune. The
Spider of the brush-wood, on the contrary, en-
dowed 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. Mforeover, 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

350

The Labyrinth Spider
watched over. We know this dwelling, built

in strict accordance with artistic cannons un-
der 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-transpar-
ency of the walls allows us to see the Spider
engaged in her household affairs. Her
cloister of vaulted passages enables her to pro-
ceed 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 wal-
let. 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

351

The Life of the Spider

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, ac-
cording to her appetite at the time. The meal
is taken outside the guard-room, on the
threshold, never indoors.

These are not capricious mouthfuls, serv-
ing to beguile the boredom of the watch for
a brief while; they are substantial repasts,
which require several sittings. Such an ap-
petite 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 wal} of

352

The Labyrinth Spider

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 inces-
santly, by means of feeding, fill her silk-glands
as and when she empties them by spinning.
Food is the means whereby she keeps the inex-
haustible 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 inter-
vals; she sometimes scorns those whom I my-
self 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 swarm-
ing in the wallet. At length, when October
ends, she clutches her offspring’s nursery and
dies withered. She has done all that maternal

353

The Life of the Spider

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 neigh-
hood 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 com-
plicated 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.

354

The Labyrinth Spider

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 project-
ing and feel a certain resistance when separat-
ing 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 per-
fectly clean inside. It is most certainly the
mother’s doing, a deliberate piece of work,
executed with minute care. The grains of

385

The Life of the Spider

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 com-
posed of a great deal of sand and a little silk.
To stop the Ichneumon’s probe and the teeth
of the other ravages, the best thing that oc-
curred 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

336

The Labyrinth Spider

together with silk. The same fears have in-
spired 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 ad-
hesive spray the solid materials collected in
the immediate neighbourhood. The opera-
tion 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

355

RNY]

The Life of the Spider

materials have to be right under her legs;
otherwise the Spider does without and con-
tinues 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.

c\re we to see in this fact proof of an in-
stinct 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 Laby-
rinth Spider has simply taught us that instinct
possesses resources which are employed or left
latent according to the conditions of the mo-
ment. Place sand under her legs and the

358

The Labyrinth Spider

spinstress will knead concrete; refuse her that
sand, or put it out of her reach, and the
Spider will remain a simple silk-worker, al-
ways 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 taber-
nacle, in favour of the Banded Epeira’s
pear-shaped gourd.

CHAPTER XVI
THE CLOTHO SPIDER

HE 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. {ost
men disappear without leaving an echo to
repeat their name; they lie buried in forget-
fulness, 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 emi-
nently respectable. If we would carve an
epitaph of some duration, what could we find

36c

The Clotho Spider

better than a Beetle’s wing-case, a Snail. shell
or a Spider’s web? Granite is worth none of
them. Entrusted to the hard stone, an inscrip-
tion becomes obliterated; entrusted to a
Butterfly’s wing, it is indestructible. ‘Du-
rand,’ 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 Clothe

361

The Life of the Spider

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 dis-
heartened: 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
litted, an edifice of a weatherbeaten aspect,
shaped lixe an overturned cupola and about
the size of half a tangerine orange. The out-
side 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.

362

The Clotho Spider

Then where is the entrance? All the
arches of the edge open upon the roof; not
one leads to the interior. The eve seeks in
vain; there is naught 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 return-
ing from her expedition, she must go in again.
How does she make her exits and her en-
trances? A straw will tell us the secret.

Pass it over the threshold of the various
arches. Everywhere, the searching straw en-
counters 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,

363

The Life of the Spider

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 consist-
ing 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.

364

The Clotho Spider

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 that were 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, Aside and other
Tenebrionidz' that favour underrock shelters;

1Qne of the largest families of Beetles, darkish in
colour and shunning the light —Translaior’s Note.

365

The Life of the Spider
segments of Juli,* bleached by the sun; shells

of Pupz,? 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. Un-
versed 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 quad-

1 The Iulus is one of the family of Myriapods, which
includes Centipedes, etc—Translator's Note.
3 A species of Land-snail—Translators Note.

306

The Clotho Spider

ridens 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
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 accumu-
late. 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 under-
taking; 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

367

The Life of the Spider

upon my table, are replaced either by deal
disks, which once formed part of cheese-
Loxes, or by round pieces of cardboard. I ar-
range 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 morn-
ing. 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 prin-
ciples as the old manor-house and consists
of two thin sheets laid one above the other,

368

The Clotho Spider

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

369

The Life of 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 dis-
tance 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.

370

The Clotho Spider

ind how? Once more with hanging strings
of sand. Ina 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 con-
clusion 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 comfort-
ably in bed, enjoy, just before we fall asleep,

KveS

The Life of the Spider

a few moments of bliss, the prelude to cessa-
tion 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, in-
variably 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 doubt-
less waiting for the game to pass. Startled
by the light of my candle, the lover of dark-
ness at once returned indoors, refusing to
reveal any of her secrets. Only, next day,
there was one more corpse hanging from the

372

The Clotho Spider

wall of the cabin, a proof that the chase
was successfully resumed after my depar-
ture.

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 ap-
proximately 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 to-
gether and to the floor of the house, that it is
impossible to part them without tearing them,
impossible, therefore, to obtain them sep-
arately. 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.

373

The Life of the Spider

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 nur-
series. 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 cham-
bers. 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 zo some

374

The Clotho Spider

distance by a funicular zroplane, 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 minutia 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 con-
cave 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

373

The Life of the Spider

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 re-
duction 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 bed-chambers,
what can be the reason of a sudden need for
greater space’ I see but one: the Spider re-
quires 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

376

The Clotho Spider

requires anew 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 in-
terests 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 with-
out taking any nourishment. It is familiar
exercise for them, after a fall, which fre-
quently occurs, to scramble up a leg of their
mount and nimbly to resume their place in the
saddle. They expend energy without receiv-
ing 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,

x7

The Life of the Spider

I tear the pockets of the one and the taber-
nacle 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 assimi-
lates 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

378

The Clotho Spider

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 Lycosz take no food as long
as they remain with their mother. Strictly
speaking, doubt is just admissible, for observa-
tion 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 be-
comes impossible. Should any one entertain a
theory of nutritive humours cast up by the
mother and filtering through the partitions at

379

The Life of the Spider

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 Epeire, 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 trans-
formed into mechanical force. If the ex-
penditure of energy were of but short dura-
tion, 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

380

The Clotho Spider

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 dur-
ing so long a period? The imagination
shrinks in dismay before the thought of an
atom endowed with exhaustible motive
oils.

We must needs, therefore, appeal to the
immaterial, in particular to heat-rays coming
from the outside and converted into move-
ment 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

381

The Life of the Spider

more wonderful still. Nothing tells us that
science will not one day turn the suspicion sug-
gested 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 ad-
dressing geometricians, who are generally
indifferent to questions of instinct, nor entomo-
logical 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 formule, 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

Bs

The Life of the Spider

the Epeirz, 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,

384

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

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 inter-
secting 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 con-
struction, therefore, is a series of chords join-
ing 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

5

The Life of the Spider

number of circuits around its pole, to which it
constantly draws nearer without ever being
able to reach it. This central point is inde-
finitely 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 in-
visible. It is a volute to which the brain con-
ceives 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. -A\t 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

36

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

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 ex-
planations, some of the properties of this
curious curve. Picture a flexible thread wound
round a logarithmic spiral. If we then un-
wind 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,) 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 questor in Sicily,

2 Jacques Bernonilli_ (1és4-1702). professor of mathe-
matics at the University of Basel from 1687 to the vear
of his death. He improved the differential calculus,

solved the isoperimetrical problem and discovered the
properties of the logarithmic spiral—Traxslaior’s Note.

7

The Life of the Spider

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

388

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

geometers, combining number and extent, at
will, so as to imagine a tenebrous abyss where-
in to practise their analytical methods after-
wards? 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 Am-
monites, 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
lengthwise, the fossil shows a magnificent
logarithmic spiral, the general pattern of the
dwelling which was a pearl palace, with nu-
merous 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 faith.

39

The Life of the Spider

ful 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 Ammo-
nite and the Nautilus in matters of higher
geometry. At least one of them, Planorbis
vortex, for example, is a marvel of logarith-
mic 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 ex-
tremely tapering cones, attaining almost nine
inches in length. Their surface is smooth and
quite plain, without any of the usual orna-
ments, such as furrows, knots or strings of
pearls. The spiral edifice is superb, graced

39

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

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 generat-
ing 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 gen-
erating line at an angle of unvarying value.

The consequence of this result is easily
deduced. If projected on a plane perpendic-
ular 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 unvary-
ing angle, would be neither more nor less than
a logarithmic spiral. Conversely, the groove
of the shell may be considered as the projec-
tion of this spiral on a conic surface.

Better still. Let us imagine a plane per-
pendicular to the axis of the shell and passing
through its summit. Let us imagine, more-
over, 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

oor

The Life of the Spider

and will describe a logarithmic spiral within
it. It is, in a more complicated degree,
a variant of Bernouilli's ‘Eadem mutata
resurge’ the logarithmic conic curve becomes
a logarithmic plane curve.

A similar geometry is found in the other
shells with elongated cones, Turritelle,
Spindle-shells, Cerithia, as well as in the shells
with flattened cones, Trochide, Turbines.
The spherical shells, those whirled into a
volute, are no exception to this rule. All,
down to the common Snail-shell, are con-
structed 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, emanci-
pated 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

392

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

point the explanation is acceptable. The
Spider, for her part, will have none of it. Un-
related to the appendix-lacking, corkscrew-
twirling Worm, she is nevertheless familiar
with the logarithmic spiral. From the cele-
brated 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 prin-
ciples 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 com-
pels her to rest content with a simpler pro-
duction. 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 geo-
metric 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

333

The Life of the Spider

itself a virtual diagram of its spiral. Acci-
dent, 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 prelimi-
nary 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. fore or less bent, more
or less outstretched, they would mechanically
determine the angle whereat the spiral shail
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 arrangment 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.

394

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

But we must not rely too much on this rule,
say others. The Angular Epeira, the Pale-
tinted Epeira and the Diadem Epeira, or
Cross Spider, all three more or less short-
limbed, rival the Banded Epeira in the spac-
ing 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 Epeire 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, where-
of 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 com-
posed entirely of viscous cross-threads.

Here we have, following one upon the
other, by a sudden alteration of the machine,
two volutes of an entirely different order as
regards direction, the number of whorls and

335

The Life of the Spider

the angle of intersection. Both of them are
logarithmic spirals. I see no mechanism of
the legs, be they long or short, that can ac-
count for this alteration.

Can it then be a premeditated design on
the part of the Epeira? Can there be calcula-
tion, 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 pro-
pensity, whose effects the animal is no more
able to control than the flower is able to con-
trol 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 im-
posed upon creation from the start.

The stone thrown by the hand returns to
earth describing a certain curve; the dead leaf
torn and wafted awav 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 mov-
ing 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

306

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

to the geometer’s speculations. A figure,
which was at first but a tentative glimpse, be-
comes a reality by the fall of a pebble out of
the vertical.

The same speculations take up the para-
bola 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 de-
scribes a ‘catenary,’ a line very simple in
shape, but endowed with an algebraic symbol
that has to resort to a kind of cabalistic num-
ber 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 repre-
sented by the following series carried out ad
infinitum :

1,1 1 1 ai
“47's as iase rasas

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 sta-
307

The Life of the Spider

tioned within the strictly defined realm of the
imagination? Not at all: the catenary ap-
pears 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 flex-
ible 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 eve 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!

398

The Geometry of the Epeira’s Web

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 formule? Why not?

Here we have the abracadabric number e
reappearing, inscribed on a Spider’s thread.
Let us examine, on a misty morning, the mesh-
work 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 ¢ 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
lime-snare; 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.

399

The Life of the Spider

And this universal geometry tells us of an
Universal Geometrican, 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.

INDEX

A

Sshna grandis (see
Dragon-fly)

Agelena labyrinthica (see
Labyrinth Spider)

American Tarantula (see

Mygale)

Ammonite, 389-390. 303.
400

Ammophila (see Hairy
Ammophila)

Angular Epeira, 231, 238
oN 248-266, 280-281,
286, 289-290, 292-301,
311-313. 305
Anoxia, 174. 314
Anthophagus, 17
Archimedes, 388
AnEronsts (see Water
Spider)
Asidz, 365

B

Baglivi, Giorgio, 48, 55, 58

Baker, W. S. Graff, 37

Banded Epeira, 78-104. 177-
178 1QO-TOI, 202-210,
219, 223. 227. 231, 238
244 254, 258-250, 206,
lass: 301-316, 320-

342, 348 383-400

Bee per Daniele bes Car-

penter-bee, Domestic
Bee, Mason-bee)

Beetle, & 74, 304-306, 361
Bernoulli, Jacques, 387,

302
Bird Spider (see Mygale)
Black-bellied Tarantula
(sce Narbonne Ly-
cosa)
Bluebotile, 18-20
Bombus (sec Bumble-bee)
pee 57-64, 314
Bunting, 228
Buprestis, 71. 314
Butterfly, 314, 316, 330, 347

Cc

Carpenter-bee, 65-68, 70
Caterpillar. 8 76, 348 "

Chaffinch, 210, 228-229
Chick, 26, 157, 378-381
Cicada, 75, 144, 257
Cicero, 387
Cicale’ (see Cicada)
Clothes-moth, 306
Clotho Nona
Clotho Spider)
Clotho Spider, 27.

3&
Cockchafer, 314
Copris, 158-159

(see

401

Index

Crab Spider, 105-108, 213-
227, 315, 350, 352
Crater Epeira, 231, 290-291

Crested Lark, 227

Cricket, 17, 142, 146-147,
149, 245, 314

Cross Spider, 27, 177-184,
191-202, 325-328, 305

Cryptus (see Ichneumon-
fly)

D

Debassaire (see Penduline
Titmouse)

Diadem Epeira (see Cross
Spider)

Dog, 317, 378

Domestic Bee, 20, 59, 62,
I05, 214-216, 218, 223,
315. 352

Dragon-fly, 80, 136, 139,
282, 289-290, 294-295,
311-312, 314

Dufour, Léon, 40, 42-52. 56
Dung-beetle, 11. 14, 71, 314
Durand, 361-362.

E

Earth-worm, 144, 392-304,
400

Empusa. 19

Ephippigera, 60, 77

Epeira (see Garden
Spider)

Epeira angulata (see An-
gular Epeira)

Epeira cratera (see Crater
Epeira)

Epeira diadema (see Cross
Spider)

Epeira fasciata (see
Banded Epeira)

Epetra pallida (see Pale-
tinted Epeira)

Epeira sericea (see Silky
Epeira)

Eumenes, 17

F

Fabre, J. Henri, 7-37
Fabre, Paul, 195
Field Cricket (see Cricket)
Fly. 8, 141, 302-304, 314,
339
G

Garden Spider, 27, 60, 108,
II7, 127. 129, 177-184,
228-320, 337, 340, 380,
383-400

Geomane; II ue oe

nat, 2, 34. 173. 246,

Goldfinch, 219, 276-277

Grasshopper. 28, =9. 60, 74.

80, 84, 245, 314
Great Peacock Moth, 28,
297

Greentinzh. 228

H
Hairy Ammophila, 17, 67,

76-77
Hen, 107-108, 1:7
Horned Viper, 312
Hornet, 304-305
House Spider, 267-271,
356, 367

402

Index

I

Ichneumon-fiy, 351
Tulus, 366 ai

L

Labyrinth Spider, 330-350
La Fontaine, Jean, 318

Langdale, Marmaduke, 37
Languedocian Scorpion,

2B 33

Languedocian Sphex, 17,
67, 76-77, 314

Lark (see Crested Lark)

Leaf-cutter (see Mega-
chile)

Leucospis. 17

Linnet, 228

Locust. 1a, 69, 82-85, 121,
130, 174, 282-284, 287-
289, 204-205, 300-310,
312-314, 316, 338-340

Lycosa narbonnensis (see
Narbonne Lycosa)

NM

Mademowselic Mori, Au-
thor of, 36 176 #,
n

308
Maeterlinck, Maurice. 37
Malmignatte, 40-41
Mammoth, 319
Mantis religiosa (see

Praying Mantis)
Mason-bee, 8 17, 90
Mason ee (sce My-

gale
Megachile, 8, 20-23

Miall, Bernard, 36, 85 a,
_ 207 m, 315
Michelet, Jules, 125-126
Midge, 227, 346
Minotaurus typheus, 14-

__ 15, 33 :
Mistral, Frédéric, 7 n
Mole, 74-75
Mosquito, 347
Moth, ge 262, 266,

N
Narbonne Lycosa, 33. 30-
77. 103-186, 221-222,

312, 330, 377, 370-382
Nautilus pompilus, 389-

390, 303

oO

Oil-beetle, 20
Opatra, 365
Opossum, 120
Ortolan, 228
Oryetes, 315
Osmia. 28

P

Pachytilus cinarescens, 17

Pale-tinted Eperia, 123-124,
231, 305

Partridge, 378

Pelopeus, 100

Penduline Titmouse, 100-

104
Pentatomida. 23-25
Philanthus apivorus, 315

403

Index

Planorbis vortex, 390

Praying Mantis, 19, 29, 85-
87, 304-306, 314

Processionary of the Pine,
15-16, 269-270

Pupa cinerea, 366-367

Pupa quadridens, 306-367

R

Rattlesnake, 312

Reduvius personatus, 24-
25

Reindeer, 319

Rhinoceros
Oryctes)

Rodwell, Miss Frances, 37

Rose-chafer (see Cetonia)

S)

Sacred Beetle, 11-14, 176

Sambé, 228-229

Scolia, 314-315

Scorpion (see Languedo-
cian Scorpion)

Silky Epeira, 85-87, 95-06,
177-179, 210-212, 220,
231, 238, 243, 258-259,
266, 272-283, 302-316,
320-322, 324-326, 342,
346, 384-400

Snail 33, 361, oe 392

Spanish-fly, 2

Sparrow, as

Sphex (see Languedocian

Beetle (see

Sphex
Spindle-shell, 392

T

Tachytes, 17

Tarantula, 40-52

Tegenaria domestica (see
House Spider)

Teixeria de Mattos, Alex-
ander, 37, 158 n, 176n,
315 ”

Tenebrionide, 365

Terebra, 390-392

Theridion lugubre, 40-41

Thomisus onustus (see
Crab Spider)

Tiberius, the Emperor, 331

Trigonocephalus, 312

Tryxalis, 84

Turritelle, 392

Vv
Viper (see Horned Viper)

W

Wasp, 8, 59-60, 62, 71, 314
Water Spider, 27, 331-332
Weevil, 71, 314

Worm (see Earth-worm)

x

Xylocopa violacea (see
Carpenter-bee)

Y
Yellowhammer, 228

404

SSS