 CHAPTER IV THE NARBONE WICOSA Michelette has told us how, as a printer's apprentice in a cellar, he established amicable relations with a spider. At a certain hour of the day, ray of sunlight would glint through the window of the gloomy workshop and light up the little compositor's case. Then his eight-legged neighbour would come down from her web and take her share of the sunshine on the edge of the case. The boy did not interfere with her. He welcomed the trusting visitor as a friend and as a pleasant diversion from the long monotony. When we lack the society of our fellow men, we take refuge in that of animals, without always losing by the change. I do not, thank God, suffer from the melancholy of a cellar. My solitude is gay with light and wordier. I attend whenever I please the field's high festival, the thrush's concert, the cricket's symphony. And yet my friendly commerce with the spider is marked by an even greater devotion than the young typesetters. I admit her to the intimacy of my study. I make room for her among my books. I set her in the sun on my window ledge. I visit her assiduously at her home in the country. The object of our relations is not to create a means of escape from the petty worries of life pinpricks whereof I have my share like other men, a very large share indeed. I propose to submit to the spider a host of questions whereto, at times, she condescends to reply. To what fair problems does not the habit of frequenting her give rise. To set them forth worthyly, the marvellous art which the little printer was to acquire were not too much. One needs the pen of a Michelette and I have but a rough blunt pencil. Let us try nevertheless even when polyclad truth is still beautiful. I will, therefore, once more take up the story of the spider's instinct, a story of which the preceding chapters have given but a very rough idea. Hence I wrote those earlier essays. My field of observation has been greatly extended. My notes have been enriched by new and most remarkable facts. It is right that I should employ them for the purpose of a more detailed biography. The exigencies of order and clearness expose me, it is true, to occasional repetitions. This is inevitable when one has to marshal in and harmonious whole a thousand items curled from day to day often unexpectedly and bearing no relation one to the other. The observer is not the master of his time. Opportunity leads him and by unsuspected ways. A certain question suggested by an earlier fact finds no reply until many years after. Its scope, moreover, is amplified and completed with views collected on the road. In a work, therefore, of this fragmentary character, repetitions necessary for the due coordination of ideas are inevitable. I shall be as sparing of them as I can. Let us once more introduce our old friends, the Apiera and the Lycosa, who are the most important spiders in my district. The Narbon Lycosa, or Black Bellied Tarantula, chooses her germicel in the waste pebbly lands beloved of the time. Her dwelling, a fortress rather than a villa, is a burrow, about nine inches deep and as wide as the neck of a claret bottle. The direction is perpendicular in so far as obstacles frequent in a soil of this kind permit. A bit of gravel can be extracted and hoisted outside, but a flint is an immovable boulder which the spider avoids by giving a bend to her gallery. If more such are met with, the residence becomes a winding cave with stone walls with lobbies communicating by means of sharp passages. This lack of plan has no attendant drawbacks, so well does the owner from long habit know every corner and story of her mansion. If any interesting buzz occur overhead, the Lycosa climbs up from her rugged manor with the same speed as from a vertical shaft. Perhaps she even finds the windings and turnings an advantage when she has to drag into her den a prey that happens to defend itself. As a rule, the end of the burrow widens into a side chamber, a lounge or resting place where the spider meditates at length and is content to lead a life of quiet when her belly is full. A silk coating, but a scanty one, for the Lycosa has not the wealth of silk possessed by the weaving spiders, lines the walls of the tube and keeps the loose earth from falling. This plaster which cements the incohesive and smooths the rugged parts is reserved more particularly for the top of the gallery near the mouth. Here in daytime, if things be peaceful all around, the Lycosa stations herself either to enjoy the warmth of the sun, her great delight or to lie in wait for a game. The threads of the silk lining afford a firm hold to the claws on every side, whether the object be to sit motionless for us, reveling in the light and heat or to pounce upon the passing prey. Around the orifice of the burrow rises to a greater or lesser height, a circular parapet formed of tiny pebbles, twigs and straps borrowed from the dry leaves of the neighbouring grasses, all more or less dexterously tied together and cemented with silk. This work of rustic architecture is never missing, even though it be no more than a mere pad. When she reaches maturity and is once settled, the Lycosa becomes eminently domesticated. I have been living in close communion with her for the last three years. I have installed her in large earthen pans on the windowsills of my study and I have her daily under my eyes. Well, it is very rarely that I happen on her outside, a few inches from her hole back to which she bolts at the least alarm. We may take it, then, that when not in captivity the Lycosa does not go far afield to gather the wearer with all to build her parapet and that she makes shift with what she finds upon her threshold. In these conditions, the building stones are soon exhausted and the masonry seizes for lack of materials. The wish came over me to see what dimensions the circular edifice would assume if the spider were given an unlimited supply, with captives to whom I myself act as courier the thing is easy enough. Were it only with a view to helping whoso may one day care to continue these relations with the big spider of the wastelands, let me describe how my subjects were housed. A good-sized earthenware pan, some nine inches deep, is filled with a red clay earth rich in pebbles, similar in short to that of the places haunted by the Lycosa, properly moistened into a paste. The artificial soiled is heaped layer by layer around a central reed of a bore equal to that of the animal's natural burrow. When the receptacle is filled to the top, I withdraw the reed which leaves a yawning perpendicular shaft. I thus obtain the abode which shall replace that of the fields. To find a hermit to inhabit it is merely the matter of a walk in the neighborhood. When removed from her own dwelling which is turned topsy-turvy by my travel and placed in possession of the den produced by my art, the Lycosa at once disappears into that den. She does not come out again, seeks nothing better elsewhere. A large wire gauze cover rests on the soil in the pan and prevents escape. In any case, the watch in this respect makes no demands upon my diligence. The prisoner is satisfied with her new abode and manifests no regret for her natural burrow. There is no attempted flight on her part. Let me not admit to add that each pan must receive not more than one inhabitant. The Lycosa is very intolerant. To her, a neighbor is fair game to be eaten without scruples when one has might on one's side. Time was when unaware of this fierce intolerance which is more savage still, at breeding time, I saw hideous orgies perpetrated in my overstocked cages. I shall have occasion to describe those tragedies later. Let us, meanwhile, consider the isolated Lycosa. They do not touch up the dwelling which I have mounted for them with a bit of read at most now and again perhaps with the object of forming a lounge or bedroom at the bottom. They fling out a few loads of rubbish, but all little by little build the curb that is to edge the mouth. I have given them plenty of first rate materials far superior to those which they use when left to their own resources. These consist first for the foundations of little smooth stones, some of which are as large as an almond. With this road metal are mingled short stripes of raffia or palm fibre, flexible ribbons easily bent. These stand for the spider's usual basket work consisting of slender stalks and dry blades of grass. Lastly, by way of an unprecedented treasure, never yet employed by a Lycosa, I place at my captive's disposal some thick threads of wool cut into inch lengths. As I wish at the same time to find out whether my animals with the magnificent lenses of their eyes are able to distinguish colours and prefer one colour to the other, I mix up bits of wool of different hues. They are red, green, white and yellow pieces. If the spider have any preference, she can choose where she pleases. The Lycosa always works at night, a regrettable circumstance which does not allow me to follow the workers' methods. I see the result and that is all. Were I to visit the building yard by the light of a lantern, I should be no wiser. The animal which is very shy would at once dive into her lair and I should have lost my sleep for nothing. Furthermore, she is not a very diligent labourer. She likes to take her time. Two or three bits of wool or raffia placed in position represent a whole night's work. And to this slowness, we must add long spells of utter idleness. Two months passed and the result of my liberality surpasses my expectations. Possessing more windfalls than they know what to do with, all picked up in their immediate neighbourhood. My Lycosa have built themselves Dungeon Keeps, the like of which their race has not yet known. Around the orifice, on a slightly sloping bank, small, flat, smooth stones have been laid to form a broken, flagged pavement. The larger stones, which are cyclopean blocks compared with the size of the animal that has shifted them, are employed as abundantly as the others. On this rockwork stands the dungeon. It is an interlacing of raffia and bits of wool picked up at random without distinction of shade. Red and white, green and yellow are mixed without any attempt at order. The Lycosa is indifferent to the joys of colour. The ultimate result is a sort of muff, a couple of inches high. Bands of silk supplied by the spinnerets unite the pieces so that the hole resembles a coarse fabric. Without being absolutely faultless for their always awkward pieces on the outside which the worker could not handle, the gaudy building is not devoid of merit. The bird lining its nest would do no better. Whoso sees the curious many coloured productions in my pants take them for an outcome of my industry contrived with a view to some experimental mischief and his surprise is great when I confess who the real order is. No one would ever believe the spider capable of constructing such a monument. It goes without saying that in a state of liberty on our barren wastelands the Lycosa does not indulge in such sumptuous architecture. I have given the reason. She is too great a stay at home to go in such materials and she makes use of the limited resources which she finds around her. Bits of earth, small chips of stone, a few twigs, a few withered grasses that is all or nearly all. Therefore the work is generally quite modest and reduced to a parapet that hardly attracts attention. My captives teach us that when materials are plentiful especially textile materials that remove all fears of landslip the Lycosa delights in tall turrets. She understands the art of dungeon building and puts it into practice as often as she possesses the means. This art is akin to another from which it is apparently derived. If the sun be fierce or a frame threatened the Lycosa closes the entrance to her dwelling with a silken trellis work wherein she embeds different matters often the remnants of victim which she has devoured. The ancient gale nailed the heads of his vanquished enemies to the door of his hut. In the same way the fierce spider sticks the skulls of her prey into the lid of her cave. These lumps look very well on the auger's roof but we must be careful not to mistake them for warlike trophies. The animal knows nothing of a barbarous bravado. Everything in the threshold of the barrow is used indiscriminately, fragments of low cast vegetable remains and specially particles of earth. A dragon flies head baked by the sun is as good as a bit of gravel and no better. And so with silk and all sorts of tiny materials the Lycosa builds a lidded cap to the entrance of her home. I am not well acquainted with the reasons that prompt her to barricade herself indoors particularly as the seclusion is only temporary and varies greatly in duration. I obtain precise details from a tribe of Lycosa wherewith the enclosure as will be seen later happens to be thronged in consequence of my investigations into the dispersal of the family. At the time of the tropical auger's heat I see my Lycosa now this patch, now that building and then friends to the burrow a convex ceiling which is difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. Can it be to protect themselves from the too vivid light? This is doubtful, for a few days later though the power of the sun remained the same the roof is broken open and the spider reappears at her door where she revels in the torrid heat of the dog days. Later when October comes if it be rainy weather she retires once more under a roof as though she were guarding herself against the damp. Let us not be too positive of anything however often when it is raining hard the spider bursts her ceiling and leaves her house open to the skies. Perhaps the lid is only put on for serious domestic events notably for the laying. I do in fact perceive young Lycosa who shut themselves in before they have attained the dignity of motherhood and who reappear sometime later with the bag containing the eggs hung to their stern. The inference that they closed the door with the object of securing greater quiet while spinning the maternal cocoon would not be in keeping with the unconcern displayed by the majority. I find some who lay their eggs in an open burrow. I came upon some who weave their cocoon and cram it with eggs in the open air before they even own a residence. In short I do not succeed in fathoming the reasons that cause the burrow to be closed no matter what the weather hot or cold, wet or dry. The fact remains that the lid is broken and repaired repeatedly sometimes on the same day. In spite of the early casing the silk roof gives it the requisite pliancy to cleave when pushed by the anchorite and rip open without falling into ruins. Swept back to the circumference of the mouth and increased by the wreckage of further ceilings it becomes a parapet which the Lycosa raises by degrees in her long moments of leisure. The bastion which surmounts the burrow therefore takes its origin from the temporary lid. The turret derives from the split ceiling. What is the purpose of this turret? My pants will tell us that. An enthusiastic rotary of the chairs so long as she is not permanently fixed the Lycosa once she has set up house prefers to lie in ambush and wait for the quarry. Every day when the heat is greatest I see my captives come up slowly from underground and leap upon the battlements of their woolly castle keep. They are then really magnificent in their stately gravity with their swelling belly contained within the aperture their head outside their glassy eyes staring their legs gathered for a spring. For hours and hours the wait motionless batting voluptuously in the sun. Should a tidbit to her liking happen to pass forward the watcher darts from her tall tower swift as an arrow from the bow. With a dagger thrust in the neck she stabs the juggler of the locust dragonfly or other prey whereof I am the purveyor and she as quickly scales the dungeon and retires with her capture. The performance is a wonderful exhibition of skill and speed. Very seldom is a quarry missed provided that it pass at a convenient distance within the range of the huntresses bound. But if the prey be at some distance for instance at the wire of the cage the Lycosa takes no notice of it. Scorning to go in pursuit she allows it to roam at will. She never strikes except when she are of her stroke. She achieves this by means of her tower. Hiding behind the wall she sees the stranger advancing keeps her eyes on him and suddenly pounces when he comes within reach. This abrupt tactics make the thing a certainty. Though he will wing then swift of flight the unvary one who approaches the ambush is lost. This presumes it is true an exemplary patience on the Lycosa's part for the burrow has not that can serve to entice victims. At best the ledge provided by the turret may at rare intervals tempt some very wayfarer to use it as a resting place. But if the quarry do not come today it is sure to come tomorrow the next day or later for the locusts hop innumerable in the wasteland nor are they always able to regulate their leaps. Some day or other chance is bound to bring one of them within the perlius of the burrow. This is the moment to spring upon the pilgrim from the ramparts. Until then we maintain a stoical vigilance. We shall dine when we can but we shall end by dining. The Lycosa therefore well aware of these lingering eventualities waits and is not unduly distressed by a prolonged abstinence. She has an accommodating stomach which is satisfied to be gorged today and to remain empty afterwards for goodness knows how long. I have sometimes neglected my catering duties for weeks at a time and my borders have been none the worse for it. After more or less protracted fast they do not pine away but are smitten with a wolf-like hunger. All these ravenous eaters are alike. They guzzle to excess today in anticipation of tomorrow's death. In her youth before she has a burrow the Lycosa earns her living in another manner. Clad in grey like her elders but without black velvet apron which she receives on attaining the marriageable age she roams among the scrubby grass. This is true hunting. Should a suitable quarry heave inside the spider pursues it, drives it from its shelters, follows it hotfoot. The fugitive gains the heights makes as though to fly away. He has not the time. With an upward leap the Lycosa grabs him before he can rise. I am charmed with the agility where with my yearling borders seize the flies which are provided for them. In vain does the fly take refuge a couple of inches up on some blade of grass with a sudden spring into the air the spider bounces upon the prey. No cat is quicker in catching her mouse. But these are feeds of youth not handicapped by obesity. Later when a heavy punch dilated with eggs and silk has to be trailed along these gymnastic performances become impracticable. The Lycosa then digs herself a settled abode a hunting box and sits in her watchtower on the lookout for game. When and how is the burry obtained wherein the Lycosa once a migrant now a stay at home used to spend the remainder of her long life. We are in autumn the weather is already turning cool. This is how the field crickets set to work. As long as the days are fine and nights not too cold the future chorister spring rambles over the fallows careless of a local inhabitation. At critical moments the cover of a dead leaf provides him with a temporary shelter. In the end the burrow the permanent dwelling is dug as the inclement season rosni. The Lycosa shares the crickets views like him she finds a thousand pleasures in the vagabond life. With September comes the nuptial badge the black velvet bib. The spiders meet at night by the soft moonlight the romp together. They eat the beloved shortly after the wedding by day they scour the country they track the game on the short pile grassy carpet. They take in their fills of the joys of sun that is much better than solitary meditation at the bottom of a well. And so it is not rare to see young mothers dragging their bag of eggs or even already carrying their family and as yet without a home. In October it is time to settle down. We then in fact find two sorts of burrows which differ in diameter. The larger bottleneck burrows belong to the old matrons who have owned their house for two years at least. The smaller of the width of a thick lead pencil contain the young mothers born that year. By the end of long and leisurely alterations the novices earth will increase in depth as well as in diameter and become roomy of both similar to those of grandmothers. In both we shall find the owner and her family the later sometimes already hatched and sometimes still enclosed in certain valid. Seeing no digging tools such as the excavation of the dwelling seemed to me to require I wondered whether the Lycosa might not avail herself of some chance gallery the work of a cicada or earthworm. This ready-made tunnel thought I must shorten the labours of the spider who appear to be so badly off for tools. She would only have to enlarge it and put it in order. I was wrong. The burrow is excavated from start to finish by her unaided labour. Then where are the digging implements? They think of the legs of the claws. They think of them but reflection tells us that tools such as these would not do. They are too long and too difficult to wield in a confined space. What is required is the miners' short handled pick therewith to drive hard to insert, to lever and to extract. What is required is the sharp point that enters the earth and crumbles it into fragments. There remain the Lycosa's fangs, delicate weapons which we at first hesitate to associate with such work so illogical does it seem to dig a pit with surgeon's scalpels. The fangs are a pair of sharp curved points which when at rest crook like a finger and take shelter between two strong pillars. The cat sheets her claws under the velvet of the paw to preserve their edge and sharpness. In the same way the Lycosa protects the poisoned daggers by folding them within the case of two powerful columns which come plumb on the surface and contain the muzzles that work them. Well, this surgical outfit intended for stabbing the jugular artery of the prey suddenly becomes a pickaxe and does rough navies work. To witness the underground digging is impossible but we can at least with the exercise of a little patience see the rubbish cut away. If I watch my captives without tiring at a very early hour for the work takes place mostly at night and at long intervals, in the end I catch them coming up with a load. Contrary to what I expected the legs take no part in the carting. It is the mouth that acts as the barrel. A tiny ball of earth is held between the fangs and is supported by the palpite or feelers which are little arms employed in the service of the mouth parts. The Lycosa descends cautiously from her turret goes to some distance to get rid of her burden and quickly dives down again to bring up more. We have seen enough. We know that the Lycosa's fangs, those lethal weapons, are not afraid to bite into clay and gravel. They need the excavated rubbish into pellets, take up the mass of earth and carry it outside. The rest follows naturally. It is the fangs that dig, delve and extract. How finely tempered they must be, not to be blunted by this well sinker's work and to do duty presently in the surgical operation of stabbing the neck. I have said that the repairs and extensions of the barrel are made at long intervals. From time to time the circular parapet receives additions and becomes a little higher. Less frequently still the dwelling is enlarged and deepened. As a rule the mansion remains as it was for a whole season. Towards the end of winter in March more than at any other period the Lycosa seems to wish to give herself a little more space. This is the moment to subject her to certain tests. We know that the field cricket when removed from his barrel and caged under conditions that would allow him to dig himself a new home should the fit sees him prefers to tramp from one casual shelter to another or rather abandons every idea of creating a permanent residence. There is a short season where it the instinct for building a subterranean gallery is imperatively roused. When this season is passed the excavating artist if accidentally deprived of his abode becomes a wandering bohemian careless of a lodging. He has forgotten his talents and he sleeps out that the bird the nest builder should neglect its art when it has no brood to care for is perfectly logical. It builds for its family not for itself. But what shall we say of the cricket who is exposed to a thousand mishaps when away from home? The protection of a roof would be of great use to him and the giddy bait does not give it a thought though he is very strong and more capable than ever of digging with his powerful jaws. What reason can we allege for this neglect? None unless it be that the season of strenuous burrowing is passed. The instincts have a calendar of their own. The given are suddenly awakened as suddenly afterwards they fall asleep. The ingenious become incompetent when the prescribed period is ended. On a subject of this kind we can consult the spider of the waste lands. I catch an old lycosine the fields and house her that same day underwire in a burrow where I have prepared a soil to her liking. If, by my contrivances and with a bit of greed, I have previously moulded a burrow roughly representing the one from which I took her, the spider enters it forewith and seems pleased with her new residence. The product of my art is accepted as her lawful property and undergoes hardly any alterations. In course of time a bastion is erected around the orifice, the top of the gallery is cemented with silk and that is all. In this establishment of my building the animal's behaviour remains what it would be under natural conditions. But place the lycosine on the surface of the ground without first shaping a burrow. What will the homeless spider do? Dig herself a dwelling one would think. She has the strength to do so. She is in the prime of life. Besides the soil is similar to that whence I ousted her and suits the operation perfectly. We therefore expect to see the spider settled before long in a shaft of her own construction. We are disappointed. Weeks pass and not an effort is made, not one. Demoralised by the absence of an ambush the lycosa hardly waltz saves a glance at the game which I serve up. The crickets pass within her reach in vain. Most often she scorns them. She slowly wastes away with fasting and boredom. At length she dies. Take up your miners trade again poor fool. Make yourself a home since you know how to and life will be sweet to you for many a long day yet. The weather is fine and virtuals plentiful. Dig, delve, go on the ground where safety lies. Like an idiot you refrain and you perish. Why? Because the craft which you want to ply is forgotten because the days of patient digging are passed and your poor brain is unable to work back. To do a second time what has been done already is beyond your wit. For all your meditative air you cannot solve the problem of how to reconstruct that which is vanished and gone. Let us now see what we can do with younger lycosa who are at the burrowing stage. I dug out five or six at the end of February. They are half the size of the old ones. Their burrows are equal in diameter to my little finger. Rubbish, quite fresh spread around the pit bears witness to the recent date of the excavations. Religated to their wire cages, these young lycosa behave differently according as the soil placed at their disposal is or is not already provided with a burrow made by me. A burrow is hardly the word. I give them but the nucleus of a shaft about an inch deep to lure them on. When in the position of this rudimentary layer the spider is not hesitate to pursue the work which I have interrupted in the fields. At night she digs with a will. I can see this by the heap of rubbish flung aside. She at last obtains a house to suit her, a house surmounted by the usual turret. The others, on the contrary, those spiders for whom the thrust of my pencil has not contrived an entrance hall representing to a certain extent the natural gallery whence I dislodged them absolutely refuse to work and they die notwithstanding the abundance of provisions. The first pursue the season's task. They were digging when I caught them and carried away by the enthusiasm of their activity they go on digging inside my cages. Taken in by my decoy shaft, they deepen the imprint of the pencil as though they were deepening their real vestibule. They do not begin their labours over again. They continue them. The second, not having this inducement, the semblance of a burrow is taken for their own work, forsake the idea of digging and allow themselves to die because they would have to travel back along the chain of actions and to resume the big strokes of the start. The begin all over again requires reflection, equality wherewith they are not endowed. To the insect and we have seen this in many earlier cases, what is done is done and cannot be taken up again. The hands of the watch do not move backwards. The insect behaves in much the same way. Its activity urges it in one direction, ever forwards, without allowing it to retrace its steps even when an accident makes this necessary. When the mason bees and the others taught us a while the lycos are now confirmed in her manner, incapable of taking fresh pains to build herself a second dwelling, when the first is done for, she will go on the tramp, she will break into a neighbour's house, she will run the risk of being eaten, should she not prove the stronger, but she will never think of making herself a home by starting a fresh. What a strange intellect is that of the animal, a mixture of mechanical routine and subtle brain power. Does it contain gleams that contrive, wishes that pursue a definite object? Following in the wake of so many others, the lycos are warrants us in entertaining a doubt. CHAPTER V. THE NARBAN LICOSA. THE FAMILY. For three weeks and more the Lycosa trails the bag of eggs hanging to her spinnerets. The reader will remember the experiments described in the third chapter of this volume, particularly those with the cork ball and the thread pellet which the spider so foolishly accepts in exchange for the real pill, while this exceedingly dull-witted mother, satisfied with aught that knocks against her heels, is about to make us wonder at her devotion. Whether she come up from her shaft to lean upon the curb and bask in the sun, whether she suddenly retire underground in the face of danger, or whether she be roaming the country before settling down, never does she let go of her precious bag, that very cumbers burden in walking, climbing, or leaping. If by some accident it become detached from the fastening to which it is hung, she flings herself madly on her treasure and lovingly embraces it, ready to bite whoso would take it from her. I myself am sometimes the thief. I then hear the points of the poison fangs grinding against the steel of my pincers, which tug in one direction, while the Lycosa tugs in the other. But let us leave the animal alone. With a quick touch of the spinnerets, the pill is restored to its place, and the spider strides off, still menacing. Towards the end of the summer, all the householders, old or young, whether in captivity on the window-cell or at liberty in the paths of the enclosure, supply me daily with the following improving sight. In the morning, as soon as the sun is hot and beats upon their burrow, the anchorites come up from the bottom with their bag, and station themselves at the opening. Long siestas on the threshold in the sun are the order of the day throughout the fine season, but at the present time the position adopted is a different one. Formally, the Lycosa came out into the sun for her own sake. Leaning on the parapet, she had the front half of her body outside the pit, and the hindre half inside. The eyes took their fill of light, the belly remained in the dark. When carrying her egg-bag, the spider reverses the posture, the front is in the pit, and the rear outside. With her hind leg she holds the white pill bulging with germs lifted above the entrance. Gently she turns and returns it, so as to present every side to the life-giving rays. And this goes on for half the day, so long as the temperature is high, and it is repeated daily, with exquisite patience during three or four weeks. To hatch its eggs the bird covers them with the quilt of its breast. It strains them to the furnace of its heart. The Lycosa turns hers in front of the hearth of hearths. She gives them the sun as an incubator. In the early days of September the young ones, who have been some time hatched, are ready to come out. The pill rips open along the middle fold. We read of the origin of this fold in an earlier chapter. Does the mother, feeling the brood quicken inside the satin wrapper, herself break open the vessel at the opportune moment, it seems probable. On the other hand there may be a spontaneous bursting, such as we shall see later in the banded Apira's balloon, a tough wallet which opens a breach of its own accord, long after the mother has ceased to exist. The whole family emerges from the bag straight away. Then and there the youngsters climb to the mother's back. As for the empty bag now a worthless shred, it is flung out of the burrow. The Lycosa does not give it a further thought. Huddled together sometimes in two or three layers according to their number, the little ones cover the whole back of the mother, who, for seven or eight months to come, will carry her family night and day. No work can we hope to see a more edifying, domestic picture than that of the Lycosa clothed in her young. From time to time I meet a little band of gypsies passing along the high-road on their way to some neighboring fair. The newborn babe mules on the mother's breast in a hammock formed out of a kerchief. The last weaned is carried pick-a-back. A third toddles clinging to its mother's skirts. Others follow closely. The biggest in the rear, ferreting in the blackberry-laden hedge-rose. It is a magnificent spectacle of happy-go-lucky fruitfulness. They go their way penniless and rejoicing. The sun is hot and the earth is fertile. But how this picture pales before that of the Lycosa. That incomparable gypsy whose brats are numbered by the hundreds, and one in all of them, from September to April without a moment's respite, find room upon the patient creature's back where they are content to lead a tranquil life and to be carted about. The little ones are very good. None moves. None seeks a quarrel with his neighbors. Clinging together they form a continuous drapery, a shaggy ulster under which the mother becomes unrecognizable. Is it an animal? A fluff of wool? Or a cluster of small seeds fastened to one another? It is impossible to tell at the first glance. The equilibrium of this living blanket is not so firm, but that falls often occur, especially when the mother climbs from indoors and comes to the threshold to let the little ones take the sun. The leased brush against the gallery unseats a part of the family. The mishap is not serious. The hen, fidgeting about her chicks, looks for the strays, calls them, gathers them together. The Lycosa knows not these maternal alarms. Impassively she leaves those who drop off to manage their own difficulty, which they do with wonderful quickness. Commend me to those youngsters for getting up without whining, dusting themselves and resuming their seat in the saddle. The unhorsed ones promptly find a leg of the mother, the usual climbing pole. They swarm up it as fast as they can and recover their places on the bearer's back. The living bark of animals is reconstructed in the twinkling of an eye. To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extravagant. The Lycosa's affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that of the plant, which is unacquainted with any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest and most delicate care upon its seeds. The animal, in many cases, knows no other sense of motherhood. What cares the Lycosa for her brood? She accepts and others as readily as her own. She has satisfied so long as her back is burdened with a swarming crowd, whether it issue from her ovaries or elsewhere. There is no question here of real maternal affection. I have described elsewhere the prowess of the cupris, watching over cells that are not her handiwork and do not contain her offspring. With a zeal which even the additional labour laid upon her does not easily weary, she removes the mildew from the alien dung-balls, which far exceed the regular nests in number. She gently scrapes and polishes and repairs them. She listens to them attentively and inquires by ear into each nursing's progress. Her real collection could not receive greater care. Her own family or others. It is all one to her. The Lycosa is equally indifferent. I take a hair-pencil and sweep the living burden from one of my spiders, making it fall close to another covered with her little ones. The evicted youngsters scamper about, find the new mother's legs, outspread, nimbly clamour up these and mount on the back of the obliging creature, who quietly lets them have their way. They slip in among the others, or when the lair is too thick push to the front and pass from the abdomen to the thorax and even to the head, though leaving the region of the eyes uncovered. It is not due to blind the bearer. The common safety demands that. They know this and respect the lenses of the eyes, however populist the assembly be. The whole animal is now covered with a swarming carpet of young. I'll accept the legs, which must preserve their freedom of action, and the underpart of the body, where contact with the ground is to be feared. My pencil forces a third family upon the already overburdened spider, and this too is peacefully accepted. The youngsters huddle up closer, lie one on top of the other in layers, and rumours found for all. The Lycosa has lost the last semblance of an animal, has become a nameless bristling thing that walks about. Falls are frequent, and are followed by continual climings. I perceive that I have reached the limits, not of the bearer's good will, but of equilibrium. The spider would adopt an indefinite further number of foundlings if the dimensions of her back afforded them a firm hold. Let us be content with this. Let us restore each family to its mother, drawing it random from the lot. There must necessarily be interchanges, but that is of no importance. Real children and adopted children are the same thing in the Lycosa's eyes. One would like to know if, apart from my artifices and circumstances where I do not interfere, the good-natured dry nurse sometimes burdens herself with a supplementary family. It would also be interesting to learn what comes of this association of lawful offspring and strangers. I have ample materials wherewith to obtain an answer to both questions. I have housed in the same cage two elderly matrons laden with youngsters. Each has her home as far removed from the others as the size of the common pan permits. The distance is nine inches or more. It is not enough. Proximity soon kindles fierce jealousies between those intolerant creatures who are obliged to live far apart, so as to secure adequate hunting grounds. One morning I catch the two heritans fighting out their quarrel on the floor. The loser is laid flat upon her back. The victress, belly to belly with her adversary, clutches her with her legs and prevents her from moving a limb. Both have their poison fangs wide open, ready to bite, without yet daring. So mutually formidable are they. After a certain period of waiting, during which the pair merely exchange threats, the stronger of the two, the one on top, closes her lethal engine and grinds the head of the prostrate foe. She then calmly devours the deceased by small mouthfuls. Now what do the youngsters do while their mother is being eaten? Easily consoled, heedless of the atrocious scene, they climb on the conqueror's back and quietly take their places among the lawful family. The ogreous raises no objection, accepts them as her own. She makes a meal off the mother and adopts the orphans. Let us add that, for many months, until the final emancipation comes, she will carry them without drawing any distinction between them and her own young. Henceforth the two families, united in so tragic a fashion, will form but one. We see how greatly out of place it would be to speak in this connection of mother love and its fond manifestations. Does the Laikosa at least feed the younglings who, for seven months, swarmed upon her back? Does she invite them to the banquet when she has secured a prize? I thought so at first, and anxious to assist at the family were passed, I devoted special attention to watching the mother's eat. As a rule the prey is consumed out of sight, in the burrow, but sometimes also a meal is taken on the threshold, in the open air. Besides, it is easy to rear the Laikosa and her family in a wire-gauze cage, with a layer of earth wherein the captive will never dream of sinking a well, such work being out of season. Everything then happens in the open. Well, while the mother munches, chews, expresses the juices and swallows, the youngsters do not budge from their camping-ground on her back. Not one quits its place, nor gives a sign of wishing to slip down and join in the meal. Nor does the mother extend an invitation to them to come and recruit themselves, nor put any broken fixtures aside for them. She feeds, and the others look gone, or rather remain indifferent to what is happening. Their perfect quiet during the Laikosa's feast points to the possession of a stomach that knows no cravings. Then with what are they sustained during their seven months of bringing on the mother's back? One conceives a notion of exudation supplied by the bearer's body, in which case the young would feed on their mother, after the manner of parasitic vermin, and gradually drain her strength. We must abandon this notion. Never are they seen to put their mouths to the skin that should be a sort of teat to them. On the other hand, the Laikosa, far from being exhausted and shriveling, keeps perfectly well and plump. She has the same pot belly when she finishes rearing her youngish. When she began, she has not lost weight. Far from it, on the contrary, she has put on flesh. She has gained the wherewithal to beget a new family next summer, one as numerous as today's. Once more, with what do the little ones keep up their strength? We do not like to suggest reserves supplied by the egg as rectifying the beastie's expenditure of vital force, especially when we consider that those reserves themselves, so close to nothing, must be economized in view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of which plentiful use will be made presently. There must be other powers at play in the tiny animal's machinery. Total abstinence from food could be understood if it were accompanied by inertia. Immobility is not life. But the young Laikosa, although usually quiet on their mother's back, are at all times ready for exercise and for agile swarming. When they fall from the maternal perambulator, they briskly pick themselves up, briskly scramble up a leg, and make their way to the top. It is a splendidly nimble and spirited performance. Besides, once seated, they have to keep a firm balance in the mass. They have to stretch and stiffen their little limbs in order to hang on to their neighbors. As a matter of fact, there is no absolute rest for them. Now physiology teaches us that not a fiber works without some expenditure of energy. The animal, which can be likened in no small measure to our industrial machines, demands on the one hand the renovation of its organism, which wears out with movement and, on the other, the maintenance of the heat transformed into action. We can compare it with the locomotive engine. As the iron horse performs its work, it gradually wears out its pistons, its rods, its wheels, its boiler tubes, all of which have to be made good from time to time. The founder and the smith repair it. Supply it, so to speak, with plastic food, the food that becomes embodied with the whole and forms part of it. But though it have just come from the engine shop, it is still inert. To acquire the power of movement, it must receive from the stoker a supply of energy-producing food. In other words, he lights a few shovelfuls of coal in its inside. This heat will produce the mechanical work. Even so with the beast. As nothing is made from nothing, the egg supplies first the materials of the newborn animal, then the plastic food, the smith of living creatures, increases the body up to a certain limit, renews it as it wears away. The stoker works at the same time without stopping. Fuel, the source of energy, makes but a short stay in the system where it is consumed and furnishes heat. Went's movement is derived. Life is a firebox. Warmed by its food, the animal machine moves, walks, runs, jumps, swims, flies, sets its locomotory apparatus going in a thousand manners. To return to the young Lycosae, they grow no larger until the period of their emancipation. I find them at the age of seven months, the same as when I saw them at their birth. The eggs supplied the materials necessary for their tiny frames, and as the loss of waste substance is for the moment excessively small, or even nil, additional plastic food is not needed so long as the beastie does not grow. In this respect the prolonged abstinence presents no difficulty, but there remains the question of energy-producing food which is indispensable for the little Lycosae moves when necessary and very actively at that. To what shall we attribute the heat expended upon action when the animal takes absolutely no nourishment? An idea suggests itself. We say to ourselves that without being life a machine is something more than matter, for man has added a little of his mind to it. Now the iron beast consuming its ration of coal is really browsing the ancient foliage of arborescent ferns in which solar energy has accumulated. Beasts of flesh and blood act no otherwise. Whether they mutually devour one another or levy tribute on the plant, they invariably to quicken themselves with the stimulant of the sun's heat, a heat stored in grass, fruit, seed, and those which feed on such. The sun, the soul of the universe, is the supreme dispenser of energy. Instead of being served up through the intermediary of food and passing through the ignominious circuit of gastric chemistry, could not this solar energy penetrate the animal directly and charge it with activity, even as the battery charges an accumulator with power? Why not live on sun, seeing that, after all, we find not but sun in the fruits which we consume? Chemical science, that bold revolutionary, promises to provide us with synthetic foodstuffs. The laboratory and the factory will take the place of the farm. Why should not physical science step in as well? It would leave the preparation of plastic food to the chemists' retorts. It would reserve for itself that of energy-producing food, which, reduced to its exact term, ceases to be matter. With the aid of some ingenious apparatus, it would pump into us our daily ration of solar energy to be later expended in movement whereby the machine would be kept going without the often painful assistance of the stomach and its adjuncts. What a delightful world where one would lunge off a ray of sunshine. Is it a dream or the anticipation of a remote reality? The problem is one of the most important that science can set us. Let us first hear the evidence of the young Lycosae regarding its possibilities. For seven months, without any material nourishment, they expend strength in moving to wind up the mechanism of their muscles they recruit themselves direct with heat and light. During the time which she was dragging the bag of eggs behind her, the mother at the best moments of the day came and held up her pill to the sun. With her two hind legs she lifted it out of the ground into the full light, slowly she turned it and returned it so that every side might receive its share of the vivifying rays. While this bath of life which awakened the germs is now prolonged to keep the tender babes active. Daily if the sky be clear the Lycosae carrying her young comes up from the burrow, leans on the curb, and spends long hours basking in the sun. Here on their mother's back the youngsters stretch their limbs delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, take in reserves of motor power, absorb energy. They are motionless, but if I only blow upon them they stampede as nimbly as though a hurricane were passing. Hurriedly they disperse, hurriedly they reassemble. A proof that without material nourishment the little animal machine is always at full pressure ready to work. When the shade comes mother and sons go down again, surfited with solar emanations. The feast of energy at the sun tavern is finished for the day. It is repeated in the same way daily, if the weather be mild, until the hour of emancipation comes, followed by the first mouthfuls of solid food. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of the Life of the Spider by Jean-Henri Fabre Translated by Alexander Dumatos 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 Scott Carpenter The Life of the Spider by Jean-Henri Fabre Translated by Alexander Dumatos Chapter 6 The Narbonne Lycosa, The Climbing Instinct The month of March comes to an end, and the departure of the youngsters begins. In glorious weather during the hottest hours of the morning, laden with her swarming burden, the mother Lycosa is outside her burrow, squatting on the parapet at the entrance. She lets them do as they please, as though indifferent to what is happening. She exhibits neither encouragement nor regret. Who so will goes, who so will remains, behind. First these, then those, according as they feel themselves duly soaked with sunshine, the little ones leave the mother in batches, run about for a moment on the ground, and then quickly reach the trellis work of the cage, which they climb with surprising alacrity. They pass through the meshes, they clamor right to the top of the citadel. All with not one exception make for the heights, instead of roaming around on the ground as might reasonably be expected from the eminently earthly habits of the Lycosa. All ascend to the dome, a strange procedure whereof I do not yet guess the object. I receive a hint from the upright ring that finishes the top of the cage. The youngsters hurry to it. It represents the porch of their gymnasium. They hang out threads across the opening, they stretch others from the ring to the nearest points of the trellis work. On these footbridges they perform slack rope exercises amid the endless comings and goings. The tiny legs open out from time to time and straddle as though to reach the most distant points. I begin to realize that they are acrobats aiming at loftier heights than those of the dome. I top the trellis with a branch that doubles the attainable height. The bustling crowd hastily scrambles up it, reaches the tip of the topmost twigs, and then sends out threads that attach themselves to every surrounding object. These form so many suspension bridges, and my beasties nimbly run along them, incessantly passing to and fro. One would say that they wished to climb higher still. I will endeavor to satisfy their desires. I take a nine-foot reed with tiny branches spreading right up to the top and place it above the cage. The little Lycosa clamor to the very summit. Here longer threads are produced from the rope-yard and are now left to float, a non-converted into bridges by the mere contact of the free end with the neighboring supports. The rope dancers embark upon them and form garlands which the least breath of air swings daintily. The thread is invisible when it does not come between the eyes and the sun, and the hole suggests rows of gnats dancing an aerial ballet. Then suddenly, teased by the air currents, the delicate mooring breaks and flies through space, behold the emigrants often away, clinging to their thread. If the wind be favorable they can land at great distances, their departures thus continued for a week or two, in bands more or less numerous according to the temperature and brightness of the day. If the sky be overcast, none dreams of leaving. The travellers need the kisses of the sun, which give energy and vigor. At last the whole family has disappeared, carried afar by its flying ropes. The mother remains alone. The loss of her offspring hardly seems to distress her. She retains her usual color and plumpness, which is a sign that the maternal exertions have not been too much for her. I also notice an increased fervor in the chase. While burdened with her family she was remarkably obstemious, accepting only with great reserve the game placed at her disposal. The coldness of the season may have militated against copious refections. Perhaps also the weight of the little ones hampered her movements and made her more discreet in attacking the prey. Today, cheered by the fine weather and able to move freely, she hurries up from her lair each time I set a tit-bit to her liking, buzzing at the entrance to her burrow. She comes and takes from my fingers the savory locust, the portly anoxia, and this performance is repeated daily, whenever I have the leisure to devote to it. After a frugal winter the time has come for plentiful repasts. This appetite tells us that the animal is not at the point of death. One does not feast in this way with a played-out stomach. My borders are entering in full vigor upon their fourth year. In the winter, in the fields, I used to find large mothers, carting their young, and others not much more than half their size. The whole series therefore represented three generations, and now, in my earthenware pans, after the departure of the family, the old matrons still carry on and continue as strong as ever. Every outward appearance tells us that, after becoming great grandmothers, they still keep themselves fit for propagating their species. The facts correspond with these anticipations. When September returns, my captives are dragging a bag as bulky as that of last year. For a long time, even when the eggs of the others have hatched for some weeks past, the mothers come daily to the threshold of the burrow and hold out their wallets for incubation by the sun. Their perseverance is not rewarded. Nothing issues from the satan purse. Nothing stirs within. Why? Because in the prison of my cages the eggs have had no father, tired of waiting at last, recognizing the barrenness of their produce. They push the bag of eggs outside the burrow and trouble about it no more. At the return of spring, by which time the family, if developed according to rule, would have been emancipated, they die. The mighty spider of the wastelands, therefore, attains to an even more patriarchal age than her neighbor, the sacred beetle. She lives for five years at the very least. Let us leave the mothers to their business and return to the youngsters. It is not without a certain surprise that we see the little Lycosae, at the first movement of their emancipation, hasten to ascend the heights. Destined to live on the ground, amidst the short grass and afterwards to settle in the permanent boat, a pit, they start by being enthusiastic acrobats. Before descending to the low levels, their normal dwelling place, they affect lofty altitudes. To rise higher and ever higher is their first need. I have not, it seems, exhausted the limit of their climbing instinct, even with a nine-foot pole, suitably furnished with branches to facilitate the escalate. Those who have eagerly reached the very top wave their legs, fumble in space, as though for yet higher stocks. It behoves us to begin again, and under better conditions. Although the Narbonne Lycosae, with her temporary yearning for the heights, is more interesting than other spiders, by reason of the fact that her usual habitation is underground, she is not so striking at swarming time because the youngsters, instead of all migrating at once, leave the mother at different periods and in small batches. The site will be a finer one, with the common garden or cross-spider, the Diadema Pyra, a Pyra Diadema decorated with three white crosses on her back. She lays her eggs in November and dies with the first cold snap. She is denied the Lycosae's longevity. She leaves the natal wallet early one spring and never sees the following spring. This wallet, which contains the eggs, has none of the ingenious structure which we admired in the bandit and silky apyra. No longer do we see the graceful balloon shape nor yet a paraboloid with a starry base. No longer a tough waterproof satin stuff. No longer a swan's-down resembling a fleecy rust cloud. No longer an inner keg in which the eggs are packed. The art of stout fabrics and of walls within walls is unknown here. The work of the cross-spider is a pill of white silk wrought into a yielding felt through which the newborn spiders will easily work their way, without the aid of the mother long since dead, and without having to rely upon its bursting at the given hour. It is about the size of a damson. We can judge by the method of manufacture from the structure, like the Lycosae whom we saw in Chapter 3 at work in one of my earthenware pans. The cross-spider, on the support supplied by a few threads stretched between the nearest objects, begins by making a shallow saucer of sufficient thickness to dispense with subsequent corrections. The process is easily guessed. The tip of the abdomen goes up and down, down and up with an even beat, while the worker shifts her place a little. Each time the spinnerets add a bit of thread to the carpet already made. When the requisite thickness is obtained, the mother empties her ovaries in one continuous flow into the center of the bowl. Glued together by their inherent moisture the eggs of a handsome orange-yellow form a ball-shaped heap. The work of the spinnerets is resumed. The ball of germs is covered with a silk cap, fashioned in the same way as the saucer. The two halves of the work are so well joined that the hole constitutes an unbroken sphere. The banded apira and silky apira, those experts in the manufacture of rain-proof textures, lay their eggs high up on brushwood and bramble without shelter of any kind. The thick material of the wallets is enough to protect the eggs from the inclemencies of the weather, especially from the damp. The diademipyra, or cross-spider, needs a cranny for hers, which is contained in a non-waterproof felt. In a heap of stones well exposed to the sun she will choose a large slab to serve as a roof. She lodges her pill underneath it, in the company of the hibernating snail. More often still she prefers the thick tangle of some dwarf shrub, standing eight or nine inches high and retaining its leaves in winter. In the absence of anything better a tuft of grass answers the purpose. Whatever the hiding place the bag of eggs is always near the ground, tucked away as well as may be amid the surrounding twigs. Save in the case of the roof supplied by a large stone we see that the site selected hardly satisfies proper hygienic needs. The apira seems to realize this fact. By way of an additional protection, even under a stone, she never fails to make a thatched roof for her eggs. She builds them a covering with bits of fine dry grass joined together with a little silk. The abode of the eggs becomes a straw wigwam. Good luck procures me two cross-spiders' nests on the edge of one of the paths in the enclosure among some tufts of ground cypress or lavender cotton. This is just what I wanted for my plans. The find is all the more valuable, as the period of the exodus is near at hand. I prepare two lengths of bamboo, standing about fifteen feet high and clustered with little twigs from top to bottom. I plant one of them straight up in the tuft beside the first nest. I clear the surrounding ground because the bushy vegetation might easily, thanks to threads carried by the wind, divert the emigrants from the road which I have laid out for them. The other bamboo I set up in the middle of the yard, all by itself, some few steps from any outstanding object. The second nest is removed as it is, shrub and all, and placed at the bottom of the tall ragged distal. The events expected are not long in coming. In the first fortnight in May, a little earlier in one case, a little later in the other, the two families each presented with a bamboo climbing pole leave their respective wallets. There is nothing remarkable about the mode of egress. The precincts to be crossed consist of a very slack network through which the outcomers wriggle. Weak little orange yellow beasties with a triangular black patch upon their sterns. One morning is long enough for the whole family to make its appearance. By degrees the emancipated youngsters climb the nearest twigs, clamor to the top, and spread a few threads. Soon they gather in a compact ball-shaped cluster the size of a walnut. They remain motionless. With their heads plunged into the heap and their sterns projecting, they doze gently, mellowing under the kisses of the sun, rich in the possession of a thread in their belly as their sole inheritance they prepare to disperse over the wide world. Let us create a disturbance among the globular group by stirring it with a straw. All wake up at once. The cluster softly dilates and spreads as though set in motion by some centrifugal force. It becomes a transparent orb wherein thousands and thousands of tiny legs quiver and shake while threads are extended along the way to be followed. The whole work resolves itself into a delicate veil which swallows up the scattered family. We then see an exquisite nebula against whose opalescent tapestry the tiny animals gleam like twinkling orange stars. This straggling state, though it lasts for hours, is but temporary. If the air grow cooler, if rain threaten, the spherical group reforms at once. This is a protective measure. On the morning after a shower I find the families on either bamboo in as good condition as on the day before. The silk, veil, and the pill formation have sheltered them well enough from the downpour. Even so do sheep when caught in a storm and the pastures gather close, huddle together, and make a common rampart of their backs. The assembly into a ball-shaped mass is also the rule in calm bright weather after the morning's exertions. In the afternoon the climbers collect at a higher point where they weave a wide conical tent with the end of a chute for its top and gathered into a compact group spend the night there. Next day when the heat returns the ascent is resumed in long files following the shrouds which a few pioneers have rigged and which those who come after elaborate with their own work. Collected nightly into a globular troupe and sheltered under a fresh tent for three or four days. Each morning before the sun grows too hot my little emigrants thus raise themselves stage by stage on both bamboos until they reach the sun unit at fifteen feet above the ground. The climb comes to an end for lack of foothold. Under normal conditions the ascent would be shorter. The younger spiders have at their disposal the bushes, the brushwood providing supports on every side for the threads wafted hither and thither by the edding air currents. With these rope bridges flung across space the dispersal presents no difficulties. Each emigrant leaves at his own good time and travels as suits him best. My devices have changed these conditions somewhat. My two bristling poles stand at a distance from the surrounding shrubs especially the one which I planted in the middle of the yard. Bridges are out of the question for the threads flung into the air are not long enough and so the acrobats eager to get away keep on climbing. Never come down again are impelled to seek in a higher position what they have failed to find in a lower. The top of my two bamboos probably fails to represent the limit of what my keen climbers are capable of achieving. We shall see in a moment the object of this climbing propensity which is a sufficiently remarkable instinct in the garden spiders who have as their domain the low growing brushwood wherein their nets are spread. It becomes a still more remarkable instinct in the Lycosa who except at the moment when she leaves her mother's back never quits the ground and yet in the early hours of her life shows herself as ardent to wooer of higher places as the young garden spiders. Let us consider the Lycosa in particular. In her at the moment of exodus a sudden instinct arises to disappear as promptly and forever a few hours later. This is the climbing instinct which is unknown to the adult and soon forgotten by the emancipated youngling doomed to wander homeless for many a long day upon the ground. Neither of them dreams of climbing to the top of a grass stalk. The full grown spider hunts trapper fashion ambushed in her tower the young one hunts a foot through the scrubby grass. In both cases there is no web and therefore no need for lofty contact points. They are not allowed to quit the ground and climb the heights. Yet here we have the young Lycosa wishing to leave the maternal abode and to travel far afield by the easiest and swiftest methods suddenly becoming an enthusiastic climber. Impetuously she scales the wire trellis of the cage where she was born. Hurriedly she climbers to the top of the tall mast which I have prepared for her. In the same way she would make for the summit the bushes in her wasteland. We catch a glimpse of her object from on high finding a wide space beneath her she sends a thread floating. It is caught by the wind and carries her hanging to it. We have our aeroplanes. She too possesses her flying machine. Once the journey is accomplished not remains of this ingenious business. The climbing instinct comes suddenly at the hour of need and no less suddenly vanishes. End of chapter 6. Chapter 7 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 Scott Carpenter. The Life of the Spider by Jean-Henri Faub. Translated by Alexander Dimatos. Chapter 7. The Spider's Exodus. Seeds when ripened in the fruit are disseminated that is to say scattered on the surface of the ground to sprout in spots as yet unoccupied and fill the expenses that realize favorable conditions. Amid the wayside rubbish grows one of the gourd family. Ekbalium eliterium, commonly called the squirting cucumber whose fruit, a rough and extremely bitter little cucumber, is the size of a date. When ripe the fleshy core resolves into a liquid in which float the seeds. Compressed by the elastic rind of the fruit this liquid bears upon the base of the footstock which is gradually forced out. Yields like a stopper breaks off and leaves an orifice through which the stream of seeds and fluid pulp is suddenly ejected. If with a novice hand under a scorching sun you shake the plant laden with yellow fruit you are bound to be somewhat startled when you hear a noise among the leaves and receive the cucumber's grape-shot in your face. The fruit of the garden balsam when ripe splits at the least touch into five fleshy valves which curl up and shoot their seeds to a distance. The botanical name of impatience given to the balsam alludes to this sudden dehiscience of the capsules which cannot endure contact without bursting. In the damp and shady places of the woods there exists a plant of the same family which for similar reasons bears the even more expressive name of impatience Nolimi Tanjere or touch me not. The capsule of the pansy expands into three valves each scooped out like a boat and laden in the middle with two rows of seeds. When these valves dry the edges shrivel, press upon the grains and eject them. Light seeds especially those of the order of composite have aeronautic apparatus, tufts, plumes, flywheels which keep them up in the air and enable them to take distant voyages. In this way at the least breath the seeds of the dandelions surmounted by a tuft of feathers fly from their dry receptacle and waft gently in the air. Next to the tuft the wing is the most satisfactory contrivance for dissemination by wind. Thanks to their membranous edge which gives them the appearance of thin scales the seeds of the yellow wallflower reach high cornices of buildings, clefts of inaccessible rocks, crannies in old walls, and sprout in the remnant of mould bequeathed by the mosses that were there before them. The samaras or keys of the elm formed of a broad light fan with the seed cased in its centre, those of the maple joined in pairs and resembling the unfurled wings of a bird, those of the ash carved like the blade of an oar, performed the most distant journeys when driven before the storm. Like the plant the insect also sometimes possesses travelling apparatus, means of dissemination that allow large families to disperse quickly over the country so that each member may have his place in the sun without injuring his neighbour, and these apparatus, these methods, vie in ingenuity with the elm samara, the dandelion plume, and the catapult of the squirting cucumber. Let us consider in particular the apyre, those magnificent spiders who, to catch their prey, stretch between one bush and the next great vertical sheets of meshes resembling those of the fowler. The most remarkable in my district is the banded apyre, apyre fasciata, so pritally belted with yellow, black, and silvery white. Her nest, a marvel of gracefulness, is a satin bag shaped like a tiny pear. Its neck ends in a concave mouthpiece closed with a lid, also of satin. Brown ribbons and fanciful meridian waves adorn the object from pole to pole. Open the nest, we have seen in an earlier chapter what we find there. Let us retell the story. Under the outer wrapper which is as stout as our woven stuffs and moreover perfectly waterproof, is a russet iderdown of exquisite delicacy, a silky fluff resembling driven smoke. Nowhere does mother love prepare us off to bed. In the middle of this downy mass hangs a fine silk, thimble-shaped purse, closed with a movable lid. This contains the eggs of a pretty orange yellow and about five hundred in number. All things considered is not this charming edifice an animal fruit, a germ casket, a capsule to be compared with that of the plants. Only the apyre's wallet, instead of seeds, holds eggs. The difference is more apparent than real, for egg and grain are one. How will this living fruit, ripening in the heat beloved of the cicade, manage to burst? How, above all, will dissemination take place? They are there in their hundreds. They must separate, go far away, isolate themselves in a spot where there is not too much fear of competition among neighbors. How will they set to work to achieve this distant exodus? Weaklings that they are taking such very tiny steps. I received the first answer from another and much earlier apyre, whose family I find at the beginning of May, on a yucca in the enclosure. The plant blossomed last year. The branching flower stem, some three feet high, still stands erect, though withered. On the green leaves shaped like a sword blade swarm two newly hatched families. The wee beasties are a dull yellow with a triangular black patch upon their stern. Later on, three white crosses ornamenting the back will tell me that my find corresponds with the cross or diadem spider, a pyrodiadema. When the sun reaches this part of the enclosure, one of the two groups falls into a great state of flutter. Nimble acrobats that they are, the little spiders scramble up, one after the other, and reach the top of the stem. Here marches and counter-marches, tumult and confusion reign, for there is a slight breeze which throws the troop into disorder. I see no connected maneuvers. From the top of the stalk they set out at every moment, one by one. They dart off suddenly. They fly away, so to speak. It is as though they had the wings of a gnat. Fourth width they disappear from view. Nothing that my eyes can see explains this strange flight, for precise observation is impossible amid the disturbing influences out of doors. What is wanted is a peaceful atmosphere, and the quiet of my study. I gather the family in a large box, which I close at once, and install it in the animal's laboratory on a small table, two steps from the open window. Apprised by what I have just seen, of their propensity to resort to the heights, I give my subjects a bundle of twigs, eighteen inches tall, as a climbing pole. The whole band hurriedly clambers up and reaches the top. In a few moments there is not one lacking in the group on high. The future will tell us the reason of this assemblage, on the projecting tips of the twigs. The little spiders are now spinning here and there at random. They go up, go down, come up again. Thus is woven a light veil of divergent threads. A many-cornered web, with the end of the branch for its summit and the edge of the table for its base, some eighteen inches wide. This veil is the drill-ground, the work-yard, where the preparations for departure are made. Here hastened the humble little creatures, running indifatigably to unfro. When the sun shines upon them, they become gleaming specks and form upon the milky background of the veil a sort of constellation, a reflex of those remote points in the sky, where the telescope shows us endless galaxies of stars. The immeasurably small and the immeasurably large are alike in appearance. It is all a matter of distance. But the living nebula is not composed of fixed stars. On the contrary, its specks are in continual movement. The young spiders never cease shifting their position on the web. Many let themselves drop, hanging by a length of thread which the fallar's weight draws from the spinner-ettes. Then quickly they climb up again by the same thread, which they wind gradually into a skein and lengthen by successive falls. Others confine themselves to running about the web and also give me the impression of working at a bundle of ropes. The thread, as a matter of fact, does not flow from the spinner-ettes. It is drawn dense with a certain effort. It is a case of extraction, not emission. To obtain her slender cord, the spider has to move about and haul either by falling or by walking, even as the rope-maker steps backwards when working his hemp. The activity now displayed on the drill-ground is a preparation for the approaching dispersal. The travelers are packing up. Soon we see a few spiders trotting briskly between the table and the open window. They are running in mid-air. But on what? If the light fall favorably I managed to see at moments, behind the tiny animal, a thread resembling a ray of light, which appears for an instant, gleams and disappears. Behind, therefore, there is a mooring, only just perceptible, if you look very carefully. But in front, towards the window, there is nothing to be seen at all. In vain I examine above, below, at the side. In vain I vary the direction of the eye. I can distinguish no support for the little creature to walk upon. One would think that the beastie were paddling in space. It suggests the idea of a small bird tied by the leg with a thread and making a flying rush forwards. But in this case, appearances are deceptive. Flight is impossible. The spider must necessarily have a bridge, whereby to cross the intervening space. This bridge, which I cannot see, I can at least destroy. I cleave the air with a ruler in front of the spider making for the window. That is quite enough. The tiny animal at once ceases to go forward and falls. The invisible foot plank is broken. My son, young Paul, who is helping me, is astounded at this wave of the magic wand, for not even he with his fresh young eyes is able to see a support ahead for the spiderling to move along. In the rear, on the other hand, a thread is visible. The difference is easily explained. Every spider, as she goes, at the same time spins a safety cord which will guard the rope walker against the risk of an always possible fall. In the rear, therefore, the thread is of double thickness and can be seen, whereas in front it is still single and hardly perceptible to the eye. Obviously this invisible footbridge is not flung out by the animal. It is carried and unrolled by a gust of air. The apyrus, plied with this line, lets it float freely and the wind, however softly blowing, bears it along and unwinds it. Even so is the smoke from the bowl of a pipe whirled up in the air. This floating thread has but to touch any object in the neighborhood and it will remain fixed to it. The suspension bridge is thrown and the spider can set out. The South American Indians are set to cross the abysses of the Cordilleras in travelling cradles made of twisted creepers. The little spider passes through space on the invisible and the imponderable. But to carry the end of the floating thread elsewhere, a draft is needed. At this moment the draft exists between the door of my study and the window, both of which are open. It is so slight that I do not feel it. I only know of it by the smoke from my pipe, curling softly in that direction. Cold air enters from without through the door. Warm air escapes from the room through the window. This is the draft that carries the threads with it and enables the spiders to embark upon their journey. I get rid of it by closing both apertures and I break off any communication by passing my ruler between the window and the table. Henceforth in the motionless atmosphere there are no departures. The current of air is missing. The skeins are not unwound and migration becomes impossible. It is soon resumed, but in a direction whereof I never dreamt, the hot sun is beating on a certain part of the floor. At this spot, which is warmer than the rest, a column of lighter ascending air is generated. If this column catch the threads, my spiders ought to rise to the ceiling of the room. The curious ascent does in fact take place. Unfortunately my troop, which has been greatly reduced by the number of departures through the window, does not lend itself to prolonged experiment. We must begin again. The next morning on the same yucca I gather the second family, as numerous as the first. Yesterday's preparations are repeated. My legion of spiders first weaves a divergent framework between the top of the brushwood placed at the emigrant's disposal and the edge of the table. Five or six hundred wee beasties swarm all over this work yard. While this little world is busily fussing making its arrangements for departure, I make my own. Every aperture in the room is closed, so as to obtain as common atmosphere as possible. A small chafing-dish is lit at the foot of the table. My hands cannot feel the heat of it at the level of the web, whereon my spiders are weaving. This is the very modest fire, which with its column of rising air shall unwind the threads and carry them on high. Let us first inquire the direction and strength of the current. Dandelion plumes made lighter by the removal of their seeds serve as my guides. Released above the chafing-dish, on the level of the table, they float slowly upwards and, for the most part, reach the ceiling. The emigrant's line should rise in the same way and even better. The thing is done. With the aid of nothing that is visible to the three of us looking on, a spider makes her a scent. She ambles with her eight legs through the air. She mounts, gently swaying. The others in ever-increasing numbers follow, sometimes by different roads, sometimes by the same road. Anyone who did not possess the secret would stand amazed at this magic ascent without a ladder. In a few minutes most of them are up, clinging to the ceiling. Not all of them reach it. I see some who, on attaining a certain height, cease to go up and even lose ground, although moving their legs forward with all the nimbleness of which they are capable. The more they struggle upwards, the faster they come down. This drifting which neutralizes the distance covered and even converts it into a retrogression is easily explained. The thread has not reached the platform. It floats, it is fixed, only at the lower end. As long as it is of a fair length, it is able, although moving, to bear the minute animal's weight. But as the spider climbs, the float becomes shorter in proportion and the time comes when a balance is struck between the essential force of the thread and the weight carried. Then the beastie remains stationary, although continuing to climb. Presently the weight becomes too much for the shorter and shorter float, and the spider slips down, in spite of her persistent forwards driving. She is at last brought back to the branch by the falling threads. Here the ascent is soon renewed, either on a fresh thread if the supply of silk be not yet exhausted, or on a strange thread the work of those who have gone before. As a rule the ceiling is reached. It is twelve feet high. The little spider is able therefore as the first product of her spinning mill before taking any refreshment to obtain a line fully twelve feet in length. And all this, the rope maker and her rope, was contained in the egg, a particle of no size at all. To what a degree of fineness can the silky matter be wrought wherewith the young spider is provided? Our manufacturers are able to turn out platinum wire that can only be seen when it is made red hot. With much simpler means the spider-link draws from her wire mill thread so delicate that even the brilliant light of the sun does not always enable us to discern them. We must not let all the climbers be stranded on the ceiling, an inhospitable region where most of them will doubtless perish being unable to produce a second thread before they have had a meal. I open the window. A current of lukewarm air coming from the chafing-dish escapes through the top. Dandelion plumes taking that direction tell me so. The wafting threads cannot fail to be carried by this flow of air and to lengthen out in the open where a light breeze is blowing. I take a pair of sharp scissors and without shaking the threads cut a few that are just visible at the base where they are thickened with an added strand. The result of this operation is marvellous. Hanging to the flying rope which is borne on the wind outside, the spider passes through the window, suddenly flies off and disappears. An easy way of travelling if the conveyance possessed a rudder that allowed the passenger to land where he pleases. But the little things are at the mercy of the winds. Where will they alight? Hundreds, thousands of yards away perhaps. Let us wish them a prosperous journey. The problem of dissemination is now solved. What would happen if matters instead of being brought about by my wiles took place in the open fields? The answer is obvious. The young spiders, borne acrobats and rope-walkers, climbed to the top of a branch so as to find sufficient space below them to unfurl their apparatus. Here each draws from her rope-factory a thread which she abandons to the eddies of the air. Gently raised by the currents that ascend from the ground warmed by the sun, this thread wafts upwards, floats, undulates, makes for its point of contact. At last it breaks and vanishes in the distance carrying the spinstrass hanging to it. The apyre with the three white crosses, the spider who has supplied us with these first data concerning the process of dissemination, is endowed with a moderate maternal industry. As a receptacle for the egg she weaves a mere pill of silk. Her work is modest indeed beside the banded apyre's balloons. I looked to these to supply me with fuller documents. I had laid up a store by rearing some mothers during the autumn. So that nothing of importance might escape me, I divided my stock of balloons, most of which were woven before my eyes into sections. One half remained in my study under a wire-gauze cover with small bunches of brushwood as supports. The other half were experiencing the vicissitudes of open-air life on the rosemaries in the enclosure. These preparations, which promised so well, did not provide me with the sight which I expected, namely a magnificent exodus worthy of the tabernacle occupied. However a few results, not devoid of interest, are to be noted. Let us state them briefly. The hatching takes place as March approaches. When the time comes, let us open the banded apyre's nest with scissors. We shall find that some of the youngsters have already left the central chamber and scattered over the surrounding Eiderdown, while the rest of the laying still consists of a compact mass of orange eggs. The appearance of the younglings is not simultaneous. It takes place with intermissions and may last a couple of weeks. Nothing as yet suggests the future richly striped livery. The abdomen is white as it were, flowery in the front half. In the other half it is a blackish-brown. The rest of the body is pale yellow except in front, where the eyes form a black edging. When left alone the little ones remain motionless and the soft russet swans down. If disturbed they shuffle lazily where they are or even walk about in a hesitating and unsteady fashion. One can see that they have to ripen before venturing outside. Maturity is achieved in the exquisite floss that surrounds the natal chamber and fills out the balloon. This is the waiting room in which the body hardens. I'll dive into it as and when they emerge from the central keg. They will not leave it until four months later, when the midsummer heats have come. Their number is considerable. A patient and careful census gives me nearly six hundred and all this comes out of a purse no larger than a pea. By what miracle is there room for such a family? How do those thousands of legs manage to grow without straining themselves? The egg-bag, as we learnt in Chapter 2, is a short cylinder rounded at the bottom. It is formed of compact white satin and insuparable barrier. It opens into a round orifice wherein is bedded a lid of the same material through which the feeble beasties would be incapable of passing. It is not a porous felt, but a fabric as tough as that of the sack. Then by what mechanism is the delivery affected? Observe that the disc of the lid doubles back into a short fold which edges into the orifice of the bag. In the same way the lid of a saucepan fits the mouth by means of a projecting rim, with this difference that the rim is not attached to the saucepan, whereas in the appire's work it is soldered to the bag or nest. Well at the time of the hatching this disc becomes unstuck and lifts and allows the newborn spiders to pass through. If the rim were movable and simply inserted, if moreover the birth of all the family took place at the same time, we might think that the door is forced open by the living wave of inmates who would set their backs to it with a common effort. We should find an approximate image in the case of the saucepan whose lid is raised by the boiling of its contents. The fabric of the cover is one with the fabric of the bag. The two are closely welded. Besides the hatching is affected in small batches, incapable of the least exertion. There must therefore be a spontaneous bursting or de-hissions, independent of the assistance of the youngsters and similar to that of the seed-pods of plants. When fully ripened the dry fruit of the snap-dragon opens three windows. That of the Pimpernel splits into two rounded halves, something like those of the outer case of a fob watch. The fruit of the carnation partly unseals its valves and opens at the top into a star-shaped hatch. Each seed-casket has its own system of locks which are made to work smoothly by the mere kiss of the sun, while that other dry fruit, the banded Epirus germ-box, likewise possesses its bursting gear. As long as the eggs remain unhatched, the door solidly fixed in its frame holds good. As soon as the little ones swarm and want to get out, it opens of itself. Come June and July, beloved of the Sacate, no less beloved of the young spiders who are anxious to be off, it were difficult indeed for them to work their way through the thick shell of the balloon. For the second time a spontaneous de-hissions seems called for. Where will it be affected? The idea occurs offhand that it will take place along the edges of the top cover. Remember the details given in an earlier chapter. The neck of the balloon ends in a wide crater which is closed by a ceiling dug out cup-wise. The material is as stout in this part as in any other, but as the lid was the finishing touch to the work, we expect to find it an incomplete soldering which would allow it to be unfastened. The method of construction deceives us. The ceiling is immovable, at no season can my forceps manage to extract it without destroying the building from top to bottom. The de-hissions takes place elsewhere, at some point on the sides. Nothing informs us, nothing suggests to us, that it will occur at one place rather than another. Moreover, to tell the truth, it is not a de-hissions prepared by means of some dainty piece of mechanism. It is a very irregular tear. Somewhat sharply, under the fierce heat of the sun, the satin bursts like the rind of an overripe pomegranate. Judging by the result, we think of the expansion of the air inside which, heated by the sun, causes this rupture. The signs of pressure from within are manifest, the tatters of the torn fabric are turned outwards. Also, a wisp of the russet iderdown that fills the wallet invariably struggles through the breach. In the midst of the protruding floss, the spiderlings expelled from their home by the explosion are in frantic commotion. The balloons of the banded apyra are bombs which, to free their contents, burst under the rays of a torrid sun. To break they need the fiery heat waves of the dog-days. When kept in the moderate atmosphere of my study, most of them did not open. At the emergence of the young does not take place unless I myself have a hand in the business. A few others open with a round hole, a hole so neat that it might have been made with a punch. This apertures the work of the prisoners who, relieving one another in turns, have with a patient tooth bitten through the stuff of the jar at some point or other. When exposed to the full force of the sun, however, on the rosemaries in the enclosure, the balloons burst and shoot forth a ruddy flood of floss and tiny animals. That is how things occur in the free sunbath of the fields. Unsheltered among the bushes, the wallet of the banded apyra when the July heat arrives splits under the effort of the inner air. The delivery is affected by an explosion of the dwelling. A very small part of the family are expelled with the flow of tawny floss. The vast majority remain in the bag, which is ripped open but still bulges with idered out. Now that the breach is made, anyone can go out who pleases, in his own good time without hurrying. Besides, a solemn action has to be performed before the emigration. The animal must cast its skin, and the molt is an event that does not fall on the same date for all. The evacuation of the place therefore lasts several days. It is affected in small squads as the slough is flung aside. Those who sally forth climb up the neighboring twigs and there, in the full heat of the sun, proceed with the work of dissemination. The method is the same as that which we saw in the case of the cross-spider. The spinnerettes abandon to the breeze. A thread that floats breaks and flies away, carrying the rope-maker with it. The number of starters on any one morning is so small as to rob the spectacle of the greater part of its interest. The scene lacks animation because of the absence of a crowd. To my intense disappointment, the silky apyrus does not either indulge in a tumultuous and dashing exodus. Let me remind you of her handiwork, the handsomest of the maternal wallets next to the banded apyrus. It is an obtuse conoid closed with a star-shaped disc. It is made of a stouter and especially a thicker material than the banded apyrus balloon, for which reason a spontaneous rupture becomes more necessary than ever. This rupture is affected at the sides of the bag not far from the edge of the lid, like the ripping of the balloon, it requires the rough aid of the heat of July. Its mechanism also seems to work by the expansion of the heated air, for we again see a partial emission of the silky floss that fills the pouch. The exit of the family is performed in a single group, and this time, before the molt, perhaps for the lack of the space necessary for the delicate casting of the skin, the conical bag falls far short of the balloon in size. Those packed within would sprain their legs in extracting them from their sheaths. The family therefore emerges in a body and settles on a sprig hard by. This is a temporary camping-ground, where spinning in unison the youngsters soon weave an open work-tent, the abode of a week or thereabouts. The molt is affected in this lounge of intersecting threads. The sloughed skins form a heap at the bottom of the dwelling. On the trapezes above, the flalings take exercise and gain strength and vigor. Finally, when maturity is attained, they set out, now these, now those, little by little and always cautiously. There are no audacious flights on the thready airship. The journey is accomplished by modest stages. Hanging to her thread, the spider lets herself drop straight down to a depth of nine or ten inches. A breath of air sets her swinging like a pendulum, sometimes drives her against a neighboring branch. There is a step towards the dispersal. At the point reached, there is a fresh fall, followed by a fresh pendulous swing that lands her a little farther afield. Thus, in short tax, for the thread is never very long, does the spiraling go about, seeing the country until she comes to a place that suits her. Should the wind blow at all hard, the voyage is cut short, the cable of the pendulum breaks, and the beastie is carried for some distance on its cord. To sum up, although on the hold the tactics of the Exodus remain much the same, the two spinstresses of my region best versed in the art of weaving mother's wallets failed to come up to my expectations. I went to the trouble of rearing them with disappointing results. Where shall I find again the wonderful spectacle which the cross-spider offered me by chance? I shall find it, in an even more striking fashion, among humbler spiders whom I had neglected to observe.