 CHAPTER XIII THE GARDEN SPIDERS PAIRING AND HUNTING Notwithstanding the importance of this subject, I shall not enlarge upon the nuptials of the apiera, grim natures whose loves easily tend 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 apiera whom I visit so often by lantern light. Here you have it. It is the first week of August at about nine o'clock in the evening under a perfect sky in calm hot weather. The spider has not yet constructed her web and is sitting motionless on her suspension cable. The fact that she should be slacking like this at a time when her building operations ought to be in full swing naturally astonishes me. Can something unusual be effort? Also I see hastening up from the neighbouring bushes and embarking on the cable a male, a dwarf, who is coming, the wipper snapper, to pay his respects to the portly jainters. How has he in his distant corner heard of the presence of the lymph ripe for marriage? Among the spiders these things are learned in the silence of the night without a summons without a signal, none knows how. Once the great peacock apprised by the magic aflovia 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 a straight for the rope walker. He has, as his guide, the infallible compass that brings every jack and his jill together. He climbs the slope of the suspension cord, he advances circumspectly, step by step. He stops some distance away, irresolute. Shall he go closer? Is this the right moment? No. The other lifts a limb and the scared visitor hurries down again. Recovering from his fright, he climbs up once more, draws a little nearer. More sudden flights followed by fresh approaches each time nigher than before. His restless running to and fro is the declaration of the enamoured swing. Pulsiverance spells success. The pair are now face to face. She is motionless and grave. He all excitement. With the tip of his leg, he ventures to touch the plump wench. He has gone too far, daring youth that he is. Panic-stricken he takes a header hanging by his safety line. It is only for a moment, however. Up he comes again. He has learnt from certain symptoms that we are at last yielding to his blandishments. With his legs and specially with his palpi or feelers, he teases the baksim gossip who answers with curious skips and bounds. Gripping a thread with her front tarsae 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 underpart of her punch 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 whippersnapper makes off at full speed, as though he had the furies at his heels. If he remained, he would presumably be eaten. These exercises on the tightrope are not repeated. I kept watch in vain on the following evenings. I never saw the fellow again. When he is gone, the bright descents 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 apiera are monuments of patients in their lion snare, with her head down and her eight legs wide-spread, the spider occupies the center of the web. The receiving point of information sent along the spokes. If anywhere behind or before a vibration occur, the sign of a capture, the apiera knows about it, even without the aid of sight. She hearsens up at once. Until then, not a moment one would think that the animal was hypnotized by her watching. At most, on the appearance of anything suspicious, she begins shaking her nest. This is her way of inspiring the intruder with awe. If I myself wish to provoke the singular alarm I would have but to tease the apiera with a bit of straw. You cannot have a swing without an impulse of some sort. The terror-stricken spider who wishes to strike terror into others has hit upon something much better. With nothing to push her, she swings with her floor of ropes. There is no effort, no visible exertion. Not a single part of the animal moves and yet everything trembles. Violent shaking proceeds from apparent inertia. Rest causes commotion. When calm is restored, she resumes her attitude, ceaselessly pondering the harsh problem of life. Shall I die in today or not? Certain privileged beings exempt from those anxieties have food in abundance and need not struggle to obtain it. Such is the general who swims blissfully in the broth of the putrefying adder. Others, and by a strange irony of fate, these are generally the most gifted, fully managed to eat by dint of craft and patience. You are of their company, O my industrious apiera, so that you may die and you spend your treasures of patience nightly and often without result. I sympathize with your woes, for I, who am as concerned as you about my daily bread, I also doggedly spread my net. The net for catching ideas. A more elusive and less substantial prize than the moth. Let us not lose heart. The best part of life is not in the present, still less in the past, it lies in the future, the domain of hope. Let us wait. All day long the sky of a uniform grey has appeared to be brewing a storm. In spite of the threatened downpour, my neighbour, who is shoot 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 streaming pan of clouds splits open and through their perches the moon peeps inquisitively. I too, lantern in hand, am peeping. A gust of wind from the north clears the realms on high, the sky becomes magnificent, perfect calm rains below. The moths dig in their nightly rounds. Good, one has caught a mighty fine one. The spider will dine today. 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 bandit and the silky apiera, both of whom live on the rosemaries 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 much ado. If the insect raises one of its starside and pulls towards itself, the treacherous thread follows. Unwinding slightly and without letting go or breaking yields to the captive's desperate jerks. Any limb released only tangles the others still more and is speedily recaptured by the sticky matter. There is no means of escape except by smashing the trap with a sudden effort, whereof even powerful insects are not always capable. Worn by the shaking of the net, the apiera hastens up. She turns round about the quarry, she inspects it at a distance so as to ascertain the degree of danger before attacking. The strength of this snarling 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 tar-side, she sets her victim spinning. The squirrel in the moving cylinder of his cage does not display a more graceful or nimble dexterity. A crossbar of the sticky spiral serves as an axis for the tiny machine, which 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 swap 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 a 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 appearance work, the spider's front tar-side are the motor. The revolving spool is the captured insect. The steel eyelet is the aperture of the spinnerets. To bind the subject with precision and dispatch, nothing could be better than this inexpensive and highly effective method. Less frequently, a second process is employed. With a quick movement, the spider herself turns round about the motionless insect, crossing the web first at the top and then at the bottom and gradually placing the fastenings of her line. The great elasticity of the line threads allow the spider to fling herself time after time right into the web and to pass through it without damaging the net. Let us now suppose the case of some dangerous game. A praying mantis, for instance, brandishing her lethal limbs, each hooked and fitted with a double-saw, an angry hornet darting her awful sting, a sturdy beetle invincible under his horny armor. These are exceptional morsels, hardly ever known to their pierre. 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 spinnerits something much better than single cords. The whole silk battery works at one and the same time firing a regular volley of ribbons and sheaths, which a wide movement of the legs spreads fan-wise and flings over the entangled prisoner. Guarding against sudden starts, the epairer casts her armful 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 soft-toothed armguards. 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 continuous spray of silk at a safe distance. When all is used up, there is more to come. Still, the epairer seems concerned at this excessive outlay. When circumstances permit, she gladly returns to the mechanism of the revolving spool. I saw her practices abrupt change of tactics on a big beetle, with a smooth, lumped body which lent itself admirably to the rotary process. After depriving the beast of all power of movement, she went up to it and turned her corporal into victim as she would have done with a medium-sized moth. But with the praying mantis sticking out her long legs and her spreading wings, rotation is no longer feasible. Then, until the quarry is thoroughly subdued, the spray of bandages goes on continuously, even to the point of drying up the silk glands. The capture of this kind is ruinous. It is true that except when I interfered, I have never seen the spider tackle that formidable preventer. Be it feeble or strong, the game is now neatly trust by one of the two methods. The next move never varies. The bound insect is bitten without persistency and without any wound that shows. The spider next retires and allows the bite to act, which it soon does. She then returns. If the victim be small, a cloth moth, for instance, it is consumed on the spot at the place where it was captured. But for a price 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 not to fear from the stickiness of the network. Before going to it, she first makes her prey turn in the converse direction to that of the original rotation. Her object is to free the nearest spokes, which supply fibers for the machinery. These are essential factors which it behaves her to keep intact if need be by sacrificing a few crossbars. It is done. The twisted ends are put back into position. The well trust 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 shunts 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 inquire into the effects of the little bite previously administered to the silk-swatched captive. Does the spider kill the patient with a view to avoiding unseasonable jerks for tests so disagreeable at dinner time? Several reasons make me doubt it. In the first place, the attack is so much veiled as to have all the appearance of a mere kiss. Besides, it is made anywhere at the first spot that offers. The expert slayers employ methods of the highest precision they give a stab in the neck or under the throat. They wound the cervical nerve centers, the seat of energy. The paralyzers, those accomplished anatomists, poison the motor nerve centers of which they know the number and position. The apiera possesses none of this fearsome knowledge. She inserts her fang at random as the bee does her sting. She does not select one spot rather than other. She bites indifferently at whatever comes within reach. This being so, her poison would have to possess unparalleled virulence to produce a corpse like inertia no matter which the point attacked. I can scarcely believe an 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 apiera wants? She who feeds on blood much more than flesh. It were to her advantage to suck a live body wherein the flow of the liquids set in motion by the pulsation of the dorsal vessel that rudimentary heart of insects must act more freely than in a lifeless body with its saddened fluids. The game which the spider means to suck dry might very well not be dead. Death is easily ascertained. I place some locusts of different species on the webs in my mind, I agree. One on this, another on that. The spider comes rushing up binds the prey nibbles at her 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 by the 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 hope. Perhaps it is a temporary trouble caused by his terrible excitement in the web. It looks as though it would soon pass. I lodge my locusts in cage with a lettuce leaf to console them for their trials but they will not be comforted. A day lapses followed by a second. Not one of them touches the leaf of Salad. Their appetite has disappeared. Their movements become more uncertain as though hampered by irresistible torpor. On the second day they are dead. Everyone irrecoverably dead. Their apiera therefore does not incontinently kill her prey with her delicate bite. She poisons it so as to produce a gradual weakness which gives the bloodsucker ample time to drain her victim without the least risk before rigor murders stops the flow of moisture. The meal lasts quite 24 hours if the joint be large and to the very end the butchered insect retains a remnant of life a favorable condition for the exhausting of the juices. Once again we see a skillful method of slaughter very different from the tactics in use among the expert paralyzers or slayers. Here there is no display of anatomical signs. Unaquainted with the patient's structure the spider stabs at random. The virulence of the poison does the rest. There are however some very few cases in which the bite is speedily mortal. My notes speak of an angular apiera grappling with the largest dragonfly in my district Aeschna Grandislin. I myself had entangled in the web this head of big game which is not often captured by the apiera. The net shakes violently seems bound to break its moories. The spider rushes from her leafy villa runs boldly up to the giantess flings a single bundle of ropes at her and without further precautions grips her with her legs tries to subdue her then digs her fangs into the dragonfly's back. The bite is prolonged in such a way as to astonish me. This is not the functionary 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 awaits for her poison to take effect. I at once remove the dragonfly. She is dead, really and truly dead. Lay upon my table and left alone for twenty four hours she makes not the slightest movement a prick of which my lens cannot see the marks so sharp-pointed other pyra's weapons was enough with a little insistence to kill the powerful animal. Proportionately the rattlesnake the horned viper, the trigonophallus and other ill-famed serpents produce less paralyzing effects upon their victims and these pyra so terrible to insects are 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 the dragonfly's. 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 Narbon Lycosa that other enthusiastic insect huntress would make us pay clearly if we attempted to take liberties with her. It is not uninteresting to watch the IPERA at dinner. I light upon one the banded IPERA at the moment about three o'clock in the afternoon when she has captured a locust. Planted in the center of the web on her resting floor she attacks the vension at the joint of the honch. There is no movement not even off 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 backward and forward. It is a sort of continuous kiss. I visit my IPERA 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 honch. The fluid contents of the victim are transferred to the progress's belly. I know not how. Next morning the spider is still at table. I take away her dish not 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 muzzles the stiff cuticle had to be tapped here, there and elsewhere after which the tattered husk placed bodily in the press of the mandibles would have been chewed, re-chewed and finally reduced to a pill which the stated spider throws up. This would have been the end of the victim had I not taken it away before the time. Whether she wound or kill there appear are 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 dragonflies flies and wasps small dung beetles and locusts. If I offer her a mantis, a bumblebee and anoxia the equivalent of the common cockshafer and other dishes probably unknown to her race she accepts all and any large and small thin skinned and horny skin that which goes afoot and that which takes winged flight she is omnivorous she prays on everything down to her own kind shardakation offer Had she to operate according to individual structure she would need an anatomical dictionary and instinct is essentially unfamiliar with generalities and knowledge is always confined to limited points the sorceress knows their weevils and their booprests beetles absolutely suspects their grasshopers their crickets and their locusts the skolier their sitonia and orcites grubs even so the other paralyzes their 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 epivorus and especially the thomisus the comely spider who cuts bee's throat they understand the fetus of blue either in the neck or under the chin a thing which the epi-era does not understand but just because of this they are specialists their province is the domestic bee animals are a little like ourselves they excel in an art only on condition of specializing in it the epi-era who being omnivorous is obliged to generalize abandons scientific methods and looks up for this by distilling a poison capable of producing torpor and even death no matter what the point attacked recognizing the large variety of game we wonder how the epi-era manages not to hesitate amid those many diverse forms how for instance she passes from the locust to the butterfly so different in appearance to attribute to her as a guide an extensive zoological knowledge were wisely 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 End of chapter Chapter 14 The Garden Spiders The Question of Property A dog has found a bone. He lies in the shade holding it between his paws and studies it fondly. It is his sacred property, his chattel. An apothecary of the dog. The dog has found a bone. He lies in the shade holding it between his paws and studies an epi-era has woven her web. Here again is property and owning a better title than the other. Favored 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 spiders web and out of his thought makes something that shall instruct or thrill us. To protect our bone we have the police invented for the express purpose. To protect the book we have none but farcical means. Place a few bricks one atop the other join them with mortar and the law will defend your wall. Build up in writing an edifice of your thoughts and it will be open to anyone, 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 the argument said Lafontaine to the great scandal of the peace-lovers. The exigencies of verse, rhyme and rhythm carried the worthy fabulous 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 evildoers of humanity who made a law of the savage maxim that might is right. We are the larvae with the changing skins the ugly caterpillars of a society that is slowly, very slowly wending its way to the triumph over might. When will this sublime metamorphosis be accomplished? To free ourselves from those wild beast brutalities must we wait for the ocean plains of the southern hemisphere to flow to our side changing the face of continents and renewing the glacial period of the reindeer and the mammoth? Perhaps so slow is moral progress. True we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship and other marvelous means of breaking our bones but our morality is not one rung the higher for at all. One would even say that the farther we proceed in our conquest of matter the more our morality recedes. The most advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down with grapeshot and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing the corn. Would we see this might triumphant in all its beauty? Let us spend a few weeks in the apyrus company. She is the owner of a web, her work, the most lawful property. The question at once presents itself. Does the spider possibly recognize her fabric by certain trademarks and distinguish it from that of her fellows? I bring about a change of webs between two neighboring banded apyre. No sooner is either placed upon the strange net than she makes for the central floor, settles herself head downwards, and does not stir from it satisfied with her neighbor's web as with her own. Neither by day nor night does she try to restore quarters and restore matters to their pristine state. Both spiders think themselves in their own domain. The two pieces of work are so much alike that I almost expected this. I then decide to effect an exchange of webs between two different species. I move the banded apyre to the net of the silky apyre and vice versa. The two webs are now dissimilar. The silky apyres has a limey spiral consisting of closer and more numerous circles. What will the spiders do when thus put to the test of the unknown? One would think that when one of them found meshes too wide for her under her feet, the other meshes too narrow, they would be frightened by this sudden change and decamp in terror. Not at all. Without a sign of perturbation they remain, plant themselves in the center 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 spider is not wrecked to the extent of being unserviceable they make no attempt to weave another in their own style. The spider, therefore, is incapable of recognizing her web. She takes another's work for hers, even when it is produced by a stranger to her race. We now come to the tragic side of this confusion. Wishing to have subjects for study within my daily reach and to save myself the trouble of casual excursions, I collect different apyre whom I find in the midst of my walks, and establish them on the shrubs in my enclosure. In this way a rosemary hedge, sheltered from the wind, and facing the sun, is turned into a well-stocked menagerie. I take the spiders from the paper bags wherein I had put them separately to carry them, and place them on the leaves with no further precaution. It is for them to make themselves at home. As a rule they do not budge all day from the place where I put them. They wait for nightfall before seeking a suitable site whereon to weave a net. Some among them show less patience. A little while ago they possessed a web between the reeds of a brook or in the home oak copses, and now they have none. They go off in search to recover their property or seize on someone else's. It is all the same to them. I come upon abandoned apyre, newly imported, making for the web of a silky apyre who has been my guest for some days now. The owner is at her post in the centre of the net. She awaits the stranger with seeming impassiveness. Then suddenly they grip each other and a desperate fight begins. The silky apyre is worsted. The other swallows her in bonds, drags her to the non-limy central floor and in the calmest fashion eats her. The dead spider is munched for twenty-four hours and drained to the last drop when the corpse, a wretched crumpled ball is at last flung aside. The web so foully conquered becomes the property of the stranger who uses it if it have not suffered too much in the contest. There is here a shadow of an excuse. The two spiders were of different species and the struggle for life often leads to these exterminations among such as are not akin. What would happen if the two belonged to the same species? It is easily seen. I cannot rely upon spontaneous invasions which may be rare under normal conditions and I myself place a bandit apyre on her kinswoman's web. A furious attack is made forthwith. Victory, after hanging for a moment in the balance, is once again decided in the stranger's favour. The vanquished party, this time a sister, is eaten without the slightest scruple. Her web becomes the property of the victor. There it is in all its horror. The rite of might. To eat one's like and take away their goods. Man did the same in days of old. He stripped and ate his fellows. We continue to rob one another, both as nations and as individuals, but we no longer eat one another. The custom has grown obsolete since we discovered an acceptable substitute in the mutton chop. Let us not, however, blacken the spider beyond her desserts. She does not live by warring on her kith and kin. She does not of her own accord attempt the conquest of another's property. It needs extraordinary circumstances to pass her to these villainies. I take her from her web and place her on another's. From that moment she knows no distinction between mayum and tuum, the thing which the leg touches at once becomes real estate. And the intruder, if she be the stronger, ends by eating the occupier a radical means of cutting short disputes. Apart from disturbances similar to those provoked by myself, disturbances that are possible in the everlasting conflict of events, the spider, jealous of her own web, seems to respect the webs of others. She never indulges in brigandage against her fellows except when dispossessed of her net, especially in the daytime, for weaving is never done by day. This work is reserved for the night. When, however, she is deprived of her livelihood and feels herself the stronger than she attacks her neighbor, rips her open, feeds on her and takes possession of her goods. We will now examine spiders of more alien habits. The banded and silky apyra differ greatly in form and colouring. The first has a plump, olive-shaped belly, richly belted with white, bright yellow and black. The second's abdomen is flat, of a silky white and pinked into festoons. Judging only by dress and figure we should not think of closely connecting the two spiders. But high above shapes tower tendencies, those main characteristics which are methods of classification so particular about minute details of form ought to consult more widely than they do. The two dissimilar spiders have exactly similar ways of living. Both of them prefer to hunt by day and never leave their webs, both sign their work with a zigzag flourish. Their nets are almost identical, so much so that the banded apyra uses the silky apyra's web after eating its owner. The apyra 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 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, a shady retreat which communicates with the lime snare by means of a telegraph wire. Her web is very similar in structure and appearance to those of the two others. What will happen if I procure her the visit of a banded apyra? The lady of the triple cross is invaded by day in the full light of the sun, thanks to my mischievous intermediary. The web is deserted, the proprietress is in her leafy hut. The telegraph wire performs its office. The cross spider hastens down, strides all around her property, beholds the danger and hurriedly returns to her hiding-place without taking any measures against the intruder. The latter, on her side, does not seem to be enjoying herself. Were she placed on the web of one of her sisters or even that of the silky apyra, she would have posted herself in the center, 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 at 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 apyra, like the others, for that matter violently shakes the web to intimidate the aggressor. This time nothing happens, despite my repeated enticements, the spider does not stir a limb. It is as though she were numbed with terror. And she has reason to be. The other is watching her from her lofty loophole. 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 tar-sight 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 bandit apyra 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 center of the web where the telegraph wire brings her. Like stricken at this apparition the bandit apyra releases herself with a jerk and disappears in the rosemary thicket. The experiment, though repeatedly renewed with different subjects, gave me no other results, distrustful of a web dissimilar to her own if not in structure at least in stickiness. The bolt bandit apyra 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 and returns back to it after taking a hurried glance at the stranger. She here awaits the coming of the night under favor of the darkness which gives her fresh courage and activity. She reappears on the scene and puts the intruder to flight by her mere presence. Aided, if need be, by a cuff or two. Injured right is the victor. Morality is satisfied but let us not congratulate the spider therefore. If the invader respects the invaded it is because very serious reasons will her. First, she would have to contend with an adversary ensconced in a stronghold whose ambushes are unknown to the assailant. Secondly, the web, if conquered, would be inconvenient to use because of the lime threads possessing a different degree of stickiness from those which she knows so well. To risk one's skin for a thing of doubtful value were twice foolish. The spider knows this and forebears but let the bandit apyra deprived of her web come upon that of the silky apyra who works her gummy twine in the same manner. Then discretion is thrown to the winds, the owner is firstly 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 route of appetites acknowledging no other reign 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 rush light, so flickering as yet, but gaining strength from age to age, man will make a flaming torch that will put an end among us to the principles of the brutes and one day utterly change the face of society. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of the Life of the Spider This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Doug Allison The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabra Translated by Alexander De Matos Chapter 15 The Labyrinth Spider While the Apiri, with their gorgeous net tapestries, are incomparable weavers many other spiders excel in ingenious devices fulfilling 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 megalas, translator's footnote or bird spiders known also as the American tarantula end of footnote, inhabit a burrow like the Narbonne Locosa, but of a perfection unknown to the brutal spider of the wastelands. The Locosa 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 megala comes home, the lid drops into the groove and fits so exactly that there is no possibility of distinguishing the join. If the aggressor persists and seeks to raise the trapped door, the recluse pushes the bolt, that is to say, plants her claws into certain holes and holds the door firmly. Another, the Argaronida or water spider, builds herself an elegant silken diving bell in which she stores air. Thus supplied with the wherewithal to breathe, she awaits the coming of the game and keeps herself cool meanwhile. At times of scorching heat, hers must be a regular, cyber-ritic abode such as eccentric man has sometimes ventured to build under water with mighty blocks of stone and marble. The submarine palaces of Tiberias are no more than an odious memory. The water spider's dainty cupola still flourishes. If I possessed documents derived from personal observation, I should like to speak of these ingenious workers. I would gladly add a few unpublished facts to their life history, but I must abandon the idea. The water spider is not found in my district. The megala, the expert in hinged doors, is found there, but very seldom. I saw one once on the edge of a path skirting the cops. Opportunity, as we know, is fleeting. The observer, more than any other, is obliged to take it by the forelock. Preoccupied as I was with other researches, I but gave a glance at the magnificent subject which Good Fortune offered. The opportunity fled and has never returned. Let us make up for it with trivial things, a frequent encounter, a conditioned favorable to consecutive study. What is common is not necessarily unimportant. Give it our sustained attention, and we shall discover in it merits which our former ignorance prevented us from seeing. When patiently entreated, the least of creatures adds its note to the harmonies of life. In the fields around, traversed in these days with a tired step, but still recently explored I find nothing so often as the labyrinth spider. Agalina labyrinthica. Not a hedge, but shelters a few at its foot, amidst grass, in quiet, sunny nooks. In the open country, and especially in hilly places laid bare by the woodman's axe, the favorite sites are Tufts of Bracken, Rockrose, Lavender, Everlasting, and Rosemary cropped close by the teeth of the flocks. This is where I resort as the isolation and kindness of the supports lend themselves to proceedings which might not be tolerated by the unfriendly hedge. Several times a week, in July, I go to study my spiders on the spot at an early hour before the sun beats fiercely on one's neck. The children accompany me, each provided with an orange wherewith to slake the thirst that will not be slow in coming. They lend me their good eyes and are fruitful. We soon discover high silk buildings betrayed at a distance by the glittering threads which the dawn has converted into dewy rosaries. The children are wonderstruck at these glorious chandeliers so much so that they forget their oranges for a moment, nor am I, on my part, indifferent. A splendid spectacle indeed is that of our spider's labyrinth heavy with the tears of the night and lit up by the first rays of light. Accompanied as it is by the thruscious 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 their webs. Here is one spreading its sheet over a large cluster of rock roses. It is the size of a handkerchief. A profusion of guy ropes attached to any chance projection moor it to the brushwood. There is not a twig but supplies a contact point. Entwined on every side surrounded and surmounted the bush disappears from view veiled in white muslin. The web is flat at the edges. As far as the unevenness of the support permits and gradually hollows into a crater not unlike the bell of a hunting horn the central portion is a cone shaped gulf a funnel whose neck narrowing by degrees dives perpendicularly into the leafy thicket to a depth of eight or nine inches at the entrance to the tube in the gloom of that murderous alley sits the spider who looks at us and betrays no great excitement at our presence. She is gray modestly adorned on the thorax with two black ribbons and on the abdomen with two stripes in which white specks alternate with brown. 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 near the center the luxury becomes first fine muslin and then satin lower still on the narrower part of the opening it is a network of rushly 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 many rounds of inspection lastly come the less visited expanses which consequently have a thinner carpet at the bottom of the passage dipping into the brushwood we might expect to find a secret cabin a wadded cell where the spider would take refuge in her hours of leisure the reality is something entirely different the long funnel neck gapes at its lower end where private door stands always a jar allowing the animal and hard pushed to escape through the grass and gain the open it is well to know this arrangement of the home if you wish to capture the spider without hurting her when attacked from the front the fugitive runs down and slips through the posturing 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 put 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 it is enough the animal is caught feeling its retreat cut off it readily darts into the paper bag held out to it if necessary it can be stimulated with a bit of straw in this way I fill my cages with subjects not been demoralized by contusions the surface of the crater is not exactly a snare it is just possible for the casual pedestrian to catch his legs in the silky carpets but giddy-pates who come here for a walk must be very rare what is wanted is a trap capable of securing the game that hops her flies the apira has her treacherous limed net the spider of the bushes has her no less treacherous labyrinth look above the web what a forest of ropes it must be the rigging of a ship disabled by a storm they run from every twig to 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 crisscross and a tangle to the height of three feet or so in inextricable disorder the hole forms a chaos of netting a labyrinth which none can pass through unless he be endowed with wings of exceptional power we have here nothing similar to the lime threads used by the garden spiders the threads are not sticky they act only by their confused multitude would you care to see the trap work? throw a small locus into the rigging enable 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 on the threshold of her abyss lets him have his way she does not run up the shrouds of the mast work to seize the desperate prisoner she waits until his bonds of threads twisted backwards and forwards make him fall on the web he falls the other comes and flings herself upon her prostrate prey the attack is not without danger the locus is demoralized rather than tied up it is merely bits of broken thread that he is trailing from his legs the bold assailant does not mind without troubling like the apuri to bury her capture under a paralyzing winding sheet she feels it to make sure of its quality and then regardless of kicks inserts her fangs the bite is usually given at the lower end of a haunch not that this place is more vulnerable than any other thin skinned part but probably because it has a better flavor the different webs which I inspect to study the food in the larder show me, among other joints various flies and small butterflies and carcasses of almost untouched locusts all deprived of their hind legs or at least of one locusts legs often dangle, emptied of their succulent contents on the edges of the web from the meat hooks of the butcher's shop in my urchin days days free from prejudices in regard to what one ate I, like many others was able to appreciate that dainty it is the equivalent on a very small scale of the larger legs of the crayfish the rigging builder therefore to whom we have just thrown a locust attacks the prey at the lower end of a thigh the bite is a lingering one once the spider has planted her fangs she does not let go of her fangs she sips she sucks when this first point is drained she passes on to others to the second haunch in particular until the prey becomes an empty hulk without losing its outline we have seen that garden spiders feed in a similar way bleeding their venison and drinking it instead of eating it at last however in the comfortable post-prandial hours the spursal chew it re-chew it and reduce it to a shapeless ball it is dessert for the teeth to toy with the labyrinth spider knows nothing of the diversions of the table she flings the drained remnants out of her web without chewing them although it lasts long the meal is eaten in perfect safety from the first bite the locust becomes a lifeless thing the spider's poison has settled him the labyrinth is greatly inferior as a work of art to that advanced to geometrical contrivance the garden spider's net and in spite of its ingenuity it does not give a favorable 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 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 who so will can take possession of the house the hour has come to found the family establishment but where? the spider knows right well morning's are spent in fruitless searches in vain I ransack the bushes that carry the webs I never find ought that realizes my hopes I learn the secret at last I chance upon a web which though deserted is not yet dilapidated proving that it has been but lately quitted instead of hunting in the brushwood where on it rests let us inspect the neighborhood to a distance of a few paces if these contain a loathe the cluster the nest is there hidden from the eye it carries an authentic certificate of its origin for the mother invariably occupies it by this method of investigation far from the labyrinth trap I become the owner of as many nests as are needed to satisfy my curiosity they do not by a long way come up to my idea of the maternal talent they are clumsy bundles of dead leaves together with silk threads under this rude covering is a pouch of fine texture containing the egg casket all in very bad condition because of the inevitable tears incurred in its extrication from the brushwood no I shall not be able to judge of the artist's capacity by these rags and tatters the insect in its buildings has its own architectural rules rules as unchangeable as anatomical peculiarities each group builds according to the same set of principles conforming to the laws of a very elementary system of aesthetics but often circumstances beyond the architect's control the space at her disposal the unevenness of the site the nature of the material and other accidental causes interfere with the workers plans and disturb the structure then virtual regularity is translated into actual chaos and disorder degenerates into disorder we might discover an interesting subject of research in the type adopted by each species when the work is accomplished without hindrances the banded apira weaves the wallet of her eggs in the open on a slim branch that does not get in her way and her work is a superbly artistic jar the silky apira also has all the elbow room she needs and her paraboloid is not without elegance can the labyrinth spider that other spinstress of accomplished merit be ignorant of the precepts of beauty when the time comes for her to weave a tent for her offspring as yet what I have seen of her work is but an unsightly bundle is that all she can do I look for better things of circumstances favor 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 labor when free from all impediment she will then, I am convinced of it beforehand, apply her talents without constraint and show herself in adept in the building of graceful nests as laying time approaches towards the middle of August I install half a dozen labyrinth spiders in large wire cages each standing in an earthen pan filled with sand a sprig of time planted in the center will furnish supports for the structure together with the trellis work of the top and sides there is no other furniture no dead leaves which would spoil the shape of the nest if the mother were minded to employ them as a covering by way of provision locusts every day they are readily accepted provided they be tender and not too large the experiment works perfectly August is hardly over before I am in possession of six nests magnificent in shape and of a dazzling whiteness the latitude of the workshop has enabled the spinstress to follow the inspiration of her instinct without serious obstacles and the result is a masterpiece of symmetry and elegance if we allow for a few angularities demanded by the suspension points it is an oval of exquisite white muslin a diaphanous abode wherein the mother must make a long stay to watch over the brood the size is nearly that of a hen's egg the cabin is open at either end the front entrance broadens into a gallery the back entrance tapers into a funnel neck I fail to see the object of this neck as for the opening in front which is wider this is beyond a doubt a whittling door I see the spider at interval standing here on the lookout for the locust whom she consumes outside taking care not to soil the spotless sanctuary with corpses the structure of the nest is not without a certain similarity to that of the home occupied during the hunting season the passage of the back represents the funnel neck that ran almost down to the ground and afforded an outlet for flight in case of grave danger the one in front expanding into a mouth kept wide open by cords stretched backwards and forwards recalls the yawning gulf in which the victims used to fall every part of the old dwelling is repeated in 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 ought else being incapable of originality now this palace of silk when all is said is nothing more than a guard house behind the soft milky opalescence of the wall glimmers the egg tabernacle with its form vaguely suggesting the star of some order of knighthood it is a large pocket of a splendid dead white isolated on every side by radiating pillars which keep it motionless in the center of the tapestry these pillars are about ten in number and are slender in the middle expanding at one end into a conical capital and at the other into a base of the same shape they face one another and mark the possession of the vaulted corridors which allow free movement in every direction around the central chamber the mother walks gravely to and fro under the arches of her cloisters she stops first here then there she makes a lengthy auscultation of the egg wallet she listens to all that happens inside the satin wrapper to disturb her would be barbarous for a closer examination let us use the dilapidated nests which we brought from the fields apart from its pillars the egg pocket is an inverted conoid reminding us of the work of the silky apyrus its material is rather stout my pincher is pulling at it do not tear it without difficulty inside the bag there is nothing but an extremely fine white wadding and lastly eggs numbering about a hundred and comparatively large for the measure a millimeter and a half translator's footnote .059 inch end of footnote they are very pale amber yellow beads which do not stick together and which roll freely as soon as I remove the swans down shroud let us put everything into a glass tube to study the hatching we will now retrace our steps a little when laying time comes her dwelling her crater into which her falling victims dropped her labyrinth in which the flight of the midges was cut short she leaves intact the apparatus that enabled her to live at her ease thoughtful of her natural duties she goes to found another establishment at a distance why at a distance she has still a few long months to live and she needs nourishment were it not better then to lodge the eggs in the immediate neighborhood and to continue her hunting with the excellent snare at her disposal the watching of the nest and the easy acquisition of preventer would go hand in hand the spider is of another opinion and I suspect the reason the sheet net and the labyrinth that surmounts it are objects visible from afar owing to their whiteness and the height where at they are placed their scintillation in the sun in frequent paths attracts mosquitoes and butterflies like the lamps in our rooms and the fowlers 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 passerby but also nothing more dangerous to the safety of the family harpies will not fail to come running at this signal showing up against the green guided by the position of the web they will assuredly find the precious purse a strange grub feasting on a hundred new laid eggs will ruin the establishment I do not know these enemies not having sufficient materials at my disposal for a register of the parasites but from indications gathered elsewhere I suspect them the bandit apira trusting to the strength of her stuff fixes her nest in the sight of all hangs it on the brushwood taking no precautions whatever to hide it and a bad business it proves for her her jar provides me with an ichnumen possessed of the inoculating larding pin a cryptus who, as a grub had fed on spider's eggs translator's footnote the ichnumen flies are very small insects which carry long ovipositors wherewith they lay their eggs in the eggs of other insects and also more specially in caterpillars their pyrocytic larvae live and develop at the expense of the egg or grub attacked which degenerates in consequence end of the footnote nothing but empty shells was left inside the central keg the germs were completely exterminated there are other ichnumen flies moreover addicted to robbing spider's nests a basket of fresh eggs is their offspring's regular food like any other the labyrinth spider dreads the scounderily advent of the pick wallet she provides for it she feels herself against it as far as possible chooses a hiding place outside her dwelling far removed from the telltale web when she feels her ovaries ripen she shifts her quarters she goes off at night to explore the neighborhood and seek a less dangerous refuge the points selected are by preference the low brambles dragging along the ground keeping their dense verger 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 as it hidden so far there is no departure from current usage as the world is full of creatures on the prowl for tender mouthfuls every mother has her apprehensions she also has her natural wisdom which advises her to establish her family in secret places very few neglect this precaution each in her own manner conceals the eggs she lays in the case of the labyrinth spider the protection of the brood is complicated by another condition in the vast majority of instances the eggs once lodged in a favorable spot are abandoned to themselves left to the chances of good or ill fortune the spider of the brushwood on the contrary endowed with greater maternal devotion has like the crab spider to mount guard 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 without any tramp she does not make up her mind to die until the little ones are gone the labyrinth spider is better treated after laying her eggs so far from becoming thin she preserves an excellent appearance and a round belly moreover she does not lose her appetite and is always prepared to bleed a locust she therefore requires a dwelling with a hunting box close to the eggs watched over we know this dwelling built in strict canons under the shelter of my cages remember the magnificent oval guard room running into a vestibule at either end the egg chamber slung in the center and isolated on every side by half a score of pillars the front hall expanding into a wide mouth and surmounted by a network of taut threads forming a trap the semi-transparency of the walls allows us to see the spider engaged in her household affairs her cloister of vaulted passages enables her to proceed to any point of the star-shaped pouch containing the eggs into fattigable in her rounds she stops here and there she fondly feels the satin listens to the secrets of the wallet if I shake the net at any point with a straw she quickly runs up to inquire what is happening will this vigilance frighten off the ik-nuan and other lovers of omelettes? perhaps so but though this danger be averted others will come one day the danger be averted others will come when the mother is no longer there her attempt of watch does not make her overlook her meals one of the locusts whereof I renew the supply at intervals in the cages is caught in the cords of the great entrance hall the spider arrives hurriedly snatches the giddy-pate and disjoints his shanks which she empties of their contents the best part of the insect the remainder of the carcasses afterwards drained more or less according to her appetite at the time the meal is taken outside the guard room on the threshold, never indoors these are not capricious mouthfuls serving to beguile the boredom of the watch for a brief while they are substantial rapasts which require several sittings such an appetite astonishes me after I have seen the crab spider that no less ardent watcher refuse the bees whom I give her and allow herself to dive in a niche can this other mother have so great a need as that to eat? yes, certainly she has and for an imperative reason at the beginning of her work she spent a large amount of silk perhaps all that her reserves contained for the double dwelling for herself and for her offspring is a huge edifice exceedingly costly in materials and yet for nearly another month I see her adding layer upon layer both to the wall of the large cabin and to that of the central chamber so much so that the texture which at first was translucent gauze becomes opaque satin the walls never seem thick enough the spider is always working at them to satisfy this lavish expenditure she must incessantly by means of feeding fill her silk glands as and when she empties them by spinning food is the means whereby she keeps the inexhaustible factory going a month passes and about the middle of September the little one's hatch but without leaving their tabernacle where they are to spend the winter packed in soft wadding the mother continues to watch and spin, lessening her activity from day to day she recruits herself with a locust at longer intervals she sometimes scorns those whom I myself entangle in her trap this increasing obstinousness 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 newborn spiders swarming in the wallet at length, when October ends she clutches her offspring's nursery and dies withered she has done all that maternal devotion can do the special providence of tiny animals will do the rest when spring comes the youngsters will emerge from their snug habitation disperse all over the neighborhood by the expedient of the floating thread and weave their first attempts at a labyrinth on the tufts of time accurate in structure and neat in silkwork though they be the nests of the caged captives do not tell us everything we must go back to what happens in the fields with their complicated conditions towards the end of December I again set out in search aided by all my youthful collaborators we inspect the stunted rosemaries along the edge of a path sheltered by a rocky, wooded slope we lift the branches that spread over the ground our zeal is rewarded with success in a couple of hours I am the owner of some nests pitiful pieces of work are they injured beyond recognition by the assaults of the weather it needs the eyes of faith to see in these ruins the equivalent of the edifices built inside my cages fastened to the creeping branch the unsightly bundle lies on the sand heaped up by the rains oak leaves roughly joined by a few threads wrap it all round one of these leaves larger than the others roofs it in and serves as a scaffolding for the whole of the ceiling if we did not see the silky remnants of the two vestibules projecting and feel a certain resistance when separating the parts of the bundle we might take the thing for a casual accumulation the work of the rain and the wind let us examine our find and look more closely into its shapelessness here is the large room the maternal cabin which rips as the coating of leaves is removed here are the circular galleries of the guard room here are the central chamber and its pillars all in a fabric of immaculate white the dirt from the damp ground has not penetrated to this dwelling protected by its wrapper of dead leaves now open the habitation of the offspring what is this? to my utter amazement 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 as the satin wall which itself is perfectly clean inside it is most certainly the mother's doing a deliberate piece of work with minute care the grains of sand are stuck together with a cement of silk and the hole 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 torped season to sum up when working in the natural state the labyrinth spider builds around the eggs between two sheets of satin a wall composed of a great deal of sand and a little silk to stop the Ick Newman's probe and the teeth of the other ravengers the best thing that occurred to her was this hoarding which combines the hardness of flint with the softness of muslin this means of defense we see pretty frequent among spiders our own big house spider Tegenaria domestica encloses her eggs in a globule strengthened with a rind of silk and of crumbly wreckage from the mortar of the walls other species living in the open under stones work in the same way they wrap their eggs in a mineral shell held together with silk the same fears have inspired the same protective methods then how comes it that of the five mothers reared in my cages not one has had recourse to the clay rampart after all sand abounded the pans in which the wire gauze cover stood were full of it on the other hand under normal conditions I have often come across nests without any mineral casing these incomplete nests were placed at some height from the ground in the thick of the brushwood the others on the contrary those supplied with a coating of sand lay on the ground the method of the work explains these differences the concrete of our buildings is obtained by the simultaneous manipulation of gravel and mortar in the same way the spider mixes the cement of the silk with the grains of sand the spinnerets never cease working while the legs fling under the adhesive spray the solid materials collected in the immediate neighborhood the operation would be impossible if after cementing each grain of sand it were necessary to stop the work of the spinnerets and go to a distance to fetch further stony elements those materials have to be right under her legs otherwise the spider does without and continues her work just the same in my cages the sand is too far off to obtain it the spider would have to leave the top of the dome where the nest is being built on its trellis work support she would have to come down some nine inches the worker refuses to take this trouble which if repeated in the case of each grain would make the action of the spinnerets too irksome she also refuses to do so when for reasons which I have not fathomed the site chosen is some way up in the tuft of rosemary but when the nest touches the ground the clay rampart is never missing are we to see in this fact proof of an instinct capable of modification either making for decadence or gradually neglecting as the ancestors safeguard or making for progress and advancing hesitatingly towards perfection in the mason's art no inference is permissible in either direction the labyrinth spider has simply taught us that instinct possesses resources which are employed or left latent according to the conditions of the moment place sand under her legs and the spinsteress will need concrete refuse her that sand or put it out of her reach then the spider will remain a simple silk worker always ready however to turn mason under favorable conditions the aggregate of things that come within the observer's scope proves that it were mad to expect from her any further innovations such as would utterly change her methods of manufacture and cause her for instance to abandon her cabin with its two entrance halls and its star-like tabernacle in favor of the bandit apyrus pear-shaped gourd End of Chapter 15 The Labyrinth Spider Chapter 16 of The Life of the Spider This is the LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by James Christopher The Life of the Spider by J. Henry Faber Translated by Alexander DiMotto Chapter 16 The Clotho Spider She is named Durand Clotho Clotho Durandi 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 rocks is no contemptible advantage Most men disappear without leaving an echo to repeat their name The worst of graves Others, among the naturalist benefit by the designation given to this or that object in Life's treasure house It is the skiff wherein they keep a float for a brief while A patch of Leichen on the bark of an old tree A blade of grass A puny beastie Any one of these hands down a man's name's posterity as effectively as a new comet For all its abuses this manner of honoring the departed is eminently respectable If we would carve an epitaph of some duration what could we find better than a beetle's wing case a snail's shell or a spider's web Granite is worth none of them entrusted to the hard stone an inscription becomes obliterated entrusted to a butterfly's wing it is indestructible Durand, therefore, by all means But why, dragon Clotho Is it the whim of a nomenclator at a loss for words to denote the ever-swelling tide of beasts that require cataloging not entirely a mythological name came to his mind one which sounded well and which, moreover was not out of place in designating a spinstrous The Clotho of antiquity is the youngest of the three fates She holds the disc staff whence our destinies are spun A disc staff wound with plenty of rough flocks just a few shreds of silk and, very rarely, a thin strand of gold Pritally shaped and clad as far as a spider can be the Clotho of the naturalist is above all a highly talented spinstrous and this is the reason why she is called after the disc staff barren deity of the infernal regions It is a pity that the analogy extends no further The mythological Clotho, niggerly with her silk and lavish with her coarse flocks spins us a harsh existence The eight-legged Clotho uses not but exquisite silk She works for herself The other works for us who are hardly worth the trouble of her acquaintance On the rocky slopes in the olive land scorched and blistered by the sun turn over the flat stones those of a fair size search above all the piles which the shepherd set up for a seat wants to watch the sheep browsing amongst the lavender below Do not be too easily disheartened The Clotho is rare not every spot suits her If fortunes smile at last upon our perseverance we shall see clinging from the lower surface of the stone which we have lifted of a weather-beaten aspect shaped like an overturned cupola and about the size of a half a tangerine orange The outside is encrusted or hung with small shells particles of earth and especially dried insects The edge of the cupola is scalloped into a dozen angular lobes, the points of which spread and are fixed to the stone In between these straps is the same number of spacious inverted arches The hole represents the Ishmaelite's camelhair tent, but upside down a flat roof stretched between the straps closes the top of the dwelling Then where is the entrance? All the arches of the edge open upon the roof Not one leads into the interior The eye seeks in vain There is nothing to point to a passage between the inside and the outside Yet the owner of the house must go out from time to time word only in search of food On returning from her expedition she must go in again How does she make her exits in her entrances? A straw will tell us the secret Pass it over the threshold of the various arches Everywhere the searching straw encounters resistance Everywhere it finds a 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 down again of its own elasticity Nor is this all which 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 migale is no safer in her burrow with its lead indistinguishable from the soil and moving on a hinge than is the clotho in her tent which is inviolent by any enemy ignorant of the device The clotho, when in danger, runs quickly home She opens the chink with a touch of her claw enters and disappears The door closes of itself and is supplied, in case of need with a lot consisting of a few threads No burglar let astrayed 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 your defensive machinery, she is incomparably ahead of the migale in matter of domestic comfort Let us open her cabin What luxury We are taught of how a ciber of old is able 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 swans down and wider 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 a spider, short-legged clad in somber garments with five yellow favors on her back Rest in this exquisite retreat demands perfect stability in gusty days when sharp drafts penetrate beneath the stone This condition is admirably fulfilled Take a careful look at the habitation The arches that grid the roof with a ballastrade and bear the weight of the edifice are fixed to the slab by their extremities Moreover from each point of contact there issues a cluster of diverging threads that creep along the stone and cling to it throughout their length which spreads afar I have measured some fully nine inches long There are so many cables they represent the ropes and pegs that holds the Arab's tent in position With such supports as these so numerous and so methodically arranged the hammock cannot be torn from its bearing saved by the intervention of brutal methods which the spider need not concern herself so seldom do they occur Another detail attracts her attention whereas the interior of the house is exquisitely clean the outside is covered with dirt bits of earth, chips of rotten wood 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 the opatra a city and other tia brionde that favor the undersized shelters segments of yule bleached by the sun shells of pupae common among the stones and lastly snail shells selected from among the smallest These relics are obviously for the most part table-leavings broken vitals Unversed in the trappers 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 wish to make a boogie 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-weighted disarmed suspicion 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 senera a pupa quaderans and other narrow spirals were in the animal retreats to an inaccessible depth the spider is incapable of breaking the calcareous shell or of getting at the hermit through the opening then why should she collect those prizes whose slimy flesh is probably not to her taste we begin to suspect a simple question of ballast and balance the house spider or tegeneria domestica prevents her web spun in the corner of the wall from losing its shape at the least breath of air by loading it with crumbling plaster and allowing tiny fragments of mortar to accumulate are we face to face with a similar process let us try experiment which is preferable to any amount of conjecture to rear the clotho is not an arduous undertaking we are not obliged to take the heavy flagstone on which the dwelling is built away with us a very simple operation suffices I loosen the fastenings with my pocket knife the spider has such stay-at-home ways that she very rarely makes off besides, I use the utmost discretion in my rape of the house and so I carry away the building together with its owner in a paper bag the flat stones which are too heavy to move and which would occupy too much room upon my table are replaced either by deal discs which once form part of cheese boxes or by round pieces of cardboard I arrange each silken hammock under one of these by itself fastening the angular projections one by one with strips of gum paper the hole stands on three short pillars and gives a very fair imitation of the underrock shelter in the form of a small doleman throughout this operation if you are careful to avoid shocks and jolts the spider remains indoors finally this apparatus is placed under a wire gauze bell-shaped cage which stands in a dish filled with sand we can have an answer by the next morning if among the cabins swung from the ceilings of the deal or cardboard dolmans 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 installs 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 frank piece it is built however on the same principles as the old manor house and consists of two thin sheets laid one above the other the upper one flat and forming a tester the lower curved and pocket shaped the texture is extremely delicate the least trifle would deform it to the detriment of the available space which is already much reduced and only just sufficient for the recluse well what has the spider done to keep the gossamer stretched to steady it and 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 center 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 hole 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 partially retaining by its own weight the requisite curve and capacity the spider now abandons the stalactites of sand which were used to keep the original pocket stretched and confines herself to dumping down on her abode any more or less heavy object mainly corpses of insects because she need not look for these and finds them ready to hand after each meal they are weights not trophies they take the place of materials that must otherwise be collected from a distance and hoisted to the top in this way a breast work 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 in 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 size cabin I strip the exterior carefully removing any foreign body the silk reappears in its original whiteness the tent looks magnificent but seems to me too limp this is also the spider's opinion she sets to work next evening to put things right and how? once more with hanging strings of sand in a few nights the silk bag bristles with a long thick beard of stalactites a curious piece of work excellently adapted to maintain the web in an unburied curve even so are the cables of a suspension bridge steady by the weight of the superstructure later as the spider goes on feeding the remains of the vitals are embedded in the wall the sand is shaken and gradually drops away and the home resumes its charnel house appearance this brings us to the same conclusion as before the cloth though knows her statics by means of additional weights she is able to lower the center of gravity and thus 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 stretch 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 it is waking it is a middle state where not prevail save a dreamy consciousness of well-being we ourselves when comfortably in bed enjoy just before we fall asleep a few moments of bliss the prelude to cessation of thought and its train of worries and those moments are among the sweetest in our lives though seems to know similar moments and to make the most of them if I push open the door of the cabin invariably I find the spider lying motionless as though an endless meditation it needs the teasing of a straw to rouse her from our apathy it needs the perk of hunger to bring her out of doors and as she is extremely temperate her appearance 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 by day not until a late hour at night does she venture forth in quest of vitals and it is hardly feasible to follow her on her excursions patience once enabled me to find her at ten o'clock in the evening taking the air on the flat roof of her house where she was doubtless waiting for the game to pass startled by the light of my candle the lover of darkness at once returned indoors refusing to reveal any of her secrets only next day there was one more corpse hanging from the wall in the cabin a proof that the chase was successfully resumed after my departure the cloth though who is not only nocturnal but also excessively shy conceals her habits from us she shows us her works those precious historical documents but hides her actions especially the laying which I estimate approximately to take place in October the sum total of the eggs is divided into five or six small flat lentiform pockets which taken together occupy the greater part of the maternal home these capsules each have their own partition wall of superb white satin but they are so closely soldiered both together into the floor of the house that it is impossible to part them without tearing them impossible therefore to obtain them separately the eggs and 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 is an excellent look of health her round belly and her well-stretched skin tell us from the first that her part is not yet wholly played the hatching takes place early November has not arrived before the pockets contain the young we things clad in black with five yellow specks exactly like their elders the newborn do not leave their respective nurseries packed close together they spend the whole of the wintery season there while the mother squatting on the pile of cells watches over the general safety without knowing her family other than by the general trepidations felt through the partitions of the tiny chambers the labyrinth spider has shown us how she maintains a permanent sitting for two months in her guard room to defend in case of need the brood which she will never see the clotho does the same thing during eight months thus earning the right to set eyes for a little while in her family trotting around her in the main cabin and to assist in the final exodus the great journey undertaken at the end of a thread when the summer heat arrives in june the young ones probably aided by their mother pierce the walls of their cells leave the maternal tent of which they know the secret outlet well take the air on the threshold for a few hours and then fly away carried to some distance by a funicular aeroplane the first product of their spinning mill the elder clotho remains behind careless of this immigration which leaves her alone she is far from being faded indeed she looks younger than ever her fresh color her robust appearance suggests 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 patients to watch despite the wear some minutiae of the rearing and the slowness of the result these abandon their dwellings after the departure of their young and each went to weave a new one for herself on the wired network of the cage they were rough and ready summaries the work of a night two hangings one above the other the upper one flat the lower concave and ballasted with stalactites of grain and sand form the new home which strengthened daily by fresh layers promised to become similar to the old one why does the spider desert her former mansion which is in no way dilapidated far from it and still exceedingly serviceable as far as one can judge once 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 well due 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 cloth though and possibly beyond her strength it is a case of the resistance of Gordian knots which not even the very spinsters who fasten them is capable of untying the encumbering litter therefore will remain if the spider were to stay at home the reduction of space when all is said would hardly matter to her she wants so little room merely enough to move in besides when you have spent seven or eight months in the cramping presence of those bed chambers what can be the reason of a sudden need for greater space I see but one the spider requires roomy habitation not for herself she is satisfied with the smallest den but for a second family where is she to place the pockets of eggs if the ruins of the previous laying remain in the way a new brood requires a new home that no doubt is why feeling that her ovaries are not yet dried up the spider shifts her quarters and founds a new establishment the facts observed are confined to this change of dwelling I regret that other interest and the difficulties attended upon a long upbringing did not allow me to pursue the question and definitely to settle the matter of the repeated laying and longevity of the cloth though before taking leave of the spider let us glance at the curious problem which has already been set by the Lycosis offspring when carried for seven months on the mother's back they keep in training his agile gymnast without taking any nourishment it is a familiar exercise for them after a fall which frequently occurs to scramble up a leg of their mount and namely to resume their place in the saddle they expend energy without receiving any material sustenance the sons of the clotho the labyrinth spider and many others confront us with the same riddle they move yet do not eat at any period of the nursery stage even in the heart of winter in the bleak days of January I tear the pockets of one and a tabernacle of the other expecting to find the swarm of youngsters lying in a state of complete inertia numb 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 marvelous to see them scampering about no brood of partridges stumbled upon by a dog scatters more promptly chicks, while still no more than tiny balls of yellow fluff hasten up at the mother's call and scurry towards the plate of rice habit has made us indifferent to the spectacle of those pretty little animal machines which work so nimbly and with such precision we pay no attention so simple does it all appear to us science examines and looks at things differently she says to herself nothing is made with nothing the chick feeds itself it consumes, or rather it assimilates and turns the food into heat which is converted into energy were anyone to tell us of a chick which for seven or eight months on end kept itself in condition for running always fit, always brisk without taking the least beekful 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 maintaining without the stay of food is realized by the clotho spider and others I believe I have made it sufficiently clear that the young Lycosi take no food as long as they remain with their mother strictly speaking, doubt is just admissible for observation is needs dumb as to what may happen earlier or later within the mysteries of the burrow it seems possible that the repleted mother may there disgorge to her family a might of the contents of her crop to this suggestion, the clotho undertakes to make reply like the Lycosa, she lives with her family but the clotho is separated from them by the walls of the cells in which the little ones are hermetically enclosed in this condition, the transmission of solid nourishment becomes impossible should anyone entertain a theory of nutritive humors cast up by the mother and filtering through the partitions at which the prisoners might come and drink, the labyrinth spider would at once dispel the idea she dies a few weeks after her young are hatched and the children, still locked in their satin bedchamber for the best part of a 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 upere 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 boast no silky screen in short, it is certain that the young of whatever species take absolutely no nourishment lastly, we wonder whether they may possess within themselves reserves that come from the egg, fatty or other matters the gradual combustion of which would be transformed into mechanical force if the expenditure of energy were of but short duration, a few hours or a few days, we could gladly welcome this idea of a motor viaticum the attribute of every creature born into the world the chick possesses it in a high degree it is steady on its legs it moves for a little while with the soul ate of the food wherewith the egg furnishes it but soon, if the stomach is not kept supplied, the center of energy becomes extinct and the bird dies how would the chick fare if it were expected, for seven or eight months without stopping, to stand on its feet, to run about to flee in the face of danger where would it stow the necessary reserves for such an amount of work the little spider, in her turn is a minute particle of no size at all where could she store enough fuel to keep up mobility during so long a period the imagination shirks in dismay before the thought of an atom endowed with inexhaustible mode of oils we must need, therefore, appeal to the immaterial in particular to heat rays coming from the outside and converted into movement by the organism this is nutrition of energy reduced to its simplest expression the mode of heat instead of being extracted from the food is utilized direct, as supplied by the sun which is the seat of all life inert matter has disconcerting secrets as witness radium living matter has secrets of its own which are more wonderful still nothing tells us that science will not one day turn the suspicion suggested by the spider into an established truth and a fundamental theory of physiology end of