The Life of the Spider
by Jean-Henri Fabre · English · Gutenberg #1887 · 425,294 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Life of the Spider
Author: Jean-Henri Fabre
Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Release date: September 1, 1999 [eBook #1887]
Most recently updated: June 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1887
Credits: David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER ***
THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER
CHAPTER I: THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA
The Spider has a bad name: to most of us, she represents an odious,
noxious animal, which every one hastens to crush under foot. Against
this summary verdict the observer sets the beast's industry, its talent
as a weaver, its wiliness in the chase, its tragic nuptials and other
characteristics of great interest. Yes, the Spider is well worth
studying, apart from any scientific reasons; but she is said to be
poisonous and that is her crime and the primary cause of the repugnance
wherewith she inspires us. Poisonous, I agree, if by that we understand
that the animal is armed with two fangs which cause the immediate death
of the little victims which it catches; but there is a wide difference
between killing a Midge and harming a man. However immediate in its
effects upon the insect entangled in the fatal web, the Spider's poison
is not serious for us and causes less inconvenience than a Gnat-bite.
That, at least, is what we can safely say as regards the great majority
of the Spiders of our regions.
Nevertheless, a few are to be feared; and foremost among these is the
Malmignatte, the terror of the Corsican peasantry. I have seen her
settle in the furrows, lay out her web and rush boldly at insects larger
than herself; I have admired her garb of black velvet speckled with
carmine-red; above all, I have heard most disquieting stories told about
her. Around Ajaccio and Bonifacio, her bite is reputed very dangerous,
sometimes mortal. The countryman declares this for a fact and the doctor
does not always dare deny it. In the neighbourhood of Pujaud, not far
from Avignon, the harvesters speak with dread of _Theridion lugubre_, {1}
first observed by Leon Dufour in the Catalonian mountains; according to
them, her bite would lead to serious accidents. The Italians have
bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsions and
frenzied dances in the person stung by her. To cope with 'tarantism,'
the name given to the disease that follows on the bite of the Italian
Spider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy, so
they tell us. Special tunes have been noted, those quickest to afford
relief. There is medical choreography, medical music. And have we not
the tarantella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathed to us perhaps by
the healing art of the Calabrian peasant?
Must we take these queer things seriously or laugh at them? From the
little that I have seen, I hesitate to pronounce an opinion. Nothing
tells us that the bite of the Tarantula may not provoke, in weak and very
impressionable people, a nervous disorder which music will relieve;
nothing tells us that a profuse perspiration, resulting from a very
energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfort by diminishing
the cause of the ailment. So far from laughing, I reflect and enquire,
when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of his Tarantula, the Pujaud
reaper of his _Theridion lugubre_, the Corsican husbandman of his
Malmignatte. Those Spiders might easily deserve, at least partly, their
terrible reputation.
The most powerful Spider in my district, the Black-bellied Tarantula,
will presently give us something to think about, in this connection. It
is not my business to discuss a medical point, I interest myself
especially in matters of instinct; but, as the poison-fangs play a
leading part in the huntress' manoeuvres of war, I shall speak of their
effects by the way. The habits of the Tarantula, her ambushes, her
artifices, her methods of killing her prey: these constitute my subject.
I will preface it with an account by Leon Dufour, {2} one of those
accounts in which I used to delight and which did much to bring me into
closer touch with the insect. The Wizard of the Landes tells us of the
ordinary Tarantula, that of the Calabrias, observed by him in Spain:
'_Lycosa tarantula_ by preference inhabits open places, dry, arid,
uncultivated places, exposed to the sun. She lives generally--at
least when full-grown--in underground passages, regular burrows, which
she digs for herself. These burrows are cylindrical; they are often
an inch in diameter and run into the ground to a depth of more than a
foot; but they are not perpendicular. The inhabitant of this gut
proves that she is at the same time a skilful hunter and an able
engineer. It was a question for her not only of constructing a deep
retreat that could hide her from the pursuit of her foes: she also had
to set up her observatory whence to watch for her prey and dart out
upon it. The Tarantula provides for every contingency: the
underground passage, in fact, begins by being vertical, but, at four
or five inches from the surface, it bends at an obtuse angle, forms a
horizontal turning and then becomes perpendicular once more. It is at
the elbow of this tunnel that the Tarantula posts herself as a
vigilant sentry and does not for a moment lose sight of the door of
her dwelling; it was there that, at the period when I was hunting her,
I used to see those eyes gleaming like diamonds, bright as a cat's
eyes in the dark.
'The outer orifice of the Tarantula's burrow is usually surmounted by
a shaft constructed throughout by herself. It is a genuine work of
architecture, standing as much as an inch above the ground and
sometimes two inches in diameter, so that it is wider than the burrow
itself. This last circumstance, which seems to have been calculated
by the industrious Spider, lends itself admirably to the necessary
extension of the legs at the moment when the prey is to be seized. The
shaft is composed mainly of bits of dry wood joined by a little clay
and so artistically laid, one above the other, that they form the
scaffolding of a straight column, the inside of which is a hollow
cylinder. The solidity of this tubular building, of this outwork, is
ensured above all by the fact that it is lined, upholstered within,
with a texture woven by the Lycosa's {3} spinnerets and continued
throughout the interior of the burrow. It is easy to imagine how
useful this cleverly-manufactured lining must be for preventing
landslip or warping, for maintaining cleanliness and for helping her
claws to scale the fortress.
'I hinted that this outwork of the burrow was not there invariably; as
a matter of fact, I have often come across Tarantulas' holes without a
trace of it, perhaps because it had been accidentally destroyed by the
weather, or because the Lycosa may not always light upon the proper
building-materials, or, lastly, because architectural talent is
possibly declared only in individuals that have reached the final
stage, the period of perfection of their physical and intellectual
development.
'One thing is certain, that I have had numerous opportunities of
seeing these shafts, these out-works of the Tarantula's abode; they
remind me, on a larger scale, of the tubes of certain Caddis-worms.
The Arachnid had more than one object in view in constructing them:
she shelters her retreat from the floods; she protects it from the
fall of foreign bodies which, swept by the wind, might end by
obstructing it; lastly, she uses it as a snare by offering the Flies
and other insects whereon she feeds a projecting point to settle on.
Who shall tell us all the wiles employed by this clever and daring
huntress?
'Let us now say something about my rather diverting Tarantula-hunts.
The best season for them is the months of May and June. The first
time that I lighted on this Spider's burrows and discovered that they
were inhabited by seeing her come to a point on the first floor of her
dwelling--the elbow which I have mentioned--I thought that I must
attack her by main force and pursue her relentlessly in order to
capture her; I spent whole hours in opening up the trench with a knife
a foot long by two inches wide, without meeting the Tarantula. I
renewed the operation in other burrows, always with the same want of
success; I really wanted a pickaxe to achieve my object, but I was too
far from any kind of house. I was obliged to change my plan of attack
and I resorted to craft. Necessity, they say, is the mother of
invention.
'It occurred to me to take a stalk, topped with its spikelet, by way
of a bait, and to rub and move it gently at the orifice of the burrow.
I soon saw that the Lycosa's attention and desires were roused.
Attracted by the bait, she came with measured steps towards the
spikelet. I withdrew it in good time a little outside the hole, so as
not to leave the animal time for reflexion; and the Spider suddenly,
with a rush, darted out of her dwelling, of which I hastened to close
the entrance. The Tarantula, bewildered by her unaccustomed liberty,
was very awkward in evading my attempts at capture; and I compelled
her to enter a paper bag, which I closed without delay.
'Sometimes, suspecting the trap, or perhaps less pressed by hunger,
she would remain coy and motionless, at a slight distance from the
threshold, which she did not think it opportune to cross. Her
patience outlasted mine. In that case, I employed the following
tactics: after making sure of the Lycosa's position and the direction
of the tunnel, I drove a knife into it on the slant, so as to take the
animal in the rear and cut off its retreat by stopping up the burrow.
I seldom failed in my attempt, especially in soil that was not stony.
In these critical circumstances, either the Tarantula took fright and
deserted her lair for the open, or else she stubbornly remained with
her back to the blade. I would then give a sudden jerk to the knife,
which flung both the earth and the Lycosa to a distance, enabling me
to capture her. By employing this hunting-method, I sometimes caught
as many as fifteen Tarantulae within the space of an hour.
'In a few cases, in which the Tarantula was under no misapprehension
as to the trap which I was setting for her, I was not a little
surprised, when I pushed the stalk far enough down to twist it round
her hiding-place, to see her play with the spikelet more or less
contemptuously and push it away with her legs, without troubling to
retreat to the back of her lair.
'The Apulian peasants, according to Baglivi's {4} account, also hunt
the Tarantula by imitating the humming of an insect with an oat-stalk
at the entrance to her burrow. I quote the passage:
'"_Ruricolae nostri quando eas captare volunt, ad illorum latibula
accedunt, tenuisque avenacae fistulae sonum, apum murmuri non
absimilem, modulantur. Quo audito, ferox exit Tarentula ut muscas vel
alia hujus modi insecta, quorum murmur esse putat, captat; captatur
tamen ista a rustico insidiatore_." {5}
'The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight, especially when we are
filled with the idea that her bite is dangerous, so fierce in
appearance, is nevertheless quite easy to tame, as I have often found
by experiment.
'On the 7th of May 1812, while at Valencia, in Spain, I caught a fair-
sized male Tarantula, without hurting him, and imprisoned him in a
glass jar, with a paper cover in which I cut a trap-door. At the
bottom of the jar I put a paper bag, to serve as his habitual
residence. I placed the jar on a table in my bedroom, so as to have
him under frequent observation. He soon grew accustomed to captivity
and ended by becoming so familiar that he would come and take from my
fingers the live Fly which I gave him. After killing his victim with
the fangs of his mandibles, he was not satisfied, like most Spiders,
to suck her head: he chewed her whole body, shoving it piecemeal into
his mouth with his palpi, after which he threw up the masticated
teguments and swept them away from his lodging.
'Having finished his meal, he nearly always made his toilet, which
consisted in brushing his palpi and mandibles, both inside and out,
with his front tarsi. After that, he resumed his air of motionless
gravity. The evening and the night were his time for taking his walks
abroad. I often heard him scratching the paper of the bag. These
habits confirm the opinion, which I have already expressed elsewhere,
that most Spiders have the faculty of seeing by day and night, like
cats.
'On the 28th of June, my Tarantula cast his skin. It was his last
moult and did not perceptibly alter either the colour of his attire or
the dimensions of his body. On the 14th of July, I had to leave
Valencia; and I stayed away until the 23rd. During this time, the
Tarantula fasted; I found him looking quite well on my return. On the
20th of August, I again left for a nine days' absence, which my
prisoner bore without food and without detriment to his health. On
the 1st of October, I once more deserted the Tarantula, leaving him
without provisions. On the 21st, I was fifty miles from Valencia and,
as I intended to remain there, I sent a servant to fetch him. I was
sorry to learn that he was not found in the jar, and I never heard
what became of him.
'I will end my observations on the Tarantulae with a short description
of a curious fight between those animals. One day, when I had had a
successful hunt after these Lycosae, I picked out two full-grown and
very powerful males and brought them together in a wide jar, in order
to enjoy the sight of a combat to the death. After walking round the
arena several times, to try and avoid each other, they were not slow
in placing themselves in a warlike attitude, as though at a given
signal. I saw them, to my surprise, take their distances and sit up
solemnly on their hind-legs, so as mutually to present the shield of
their chests to each other. After watching them face to face like
that for two minutes, during which they had doubtless provoked each
other by glances that escaped my own, I saw them fling themselves upon
each other at the same time, twisting their legs round each other and
obstinately struggling to bite each other with the fangs of the
mandibles. Whether from fatigue or from convention, the combat was
suspended; there was a few seconds' truce; and each athlete moved away
and resumed his threatening posture. This circumstance reminded me
that, in the strange fights between cats, there are also suspensions
of hostilities. But the contest was soon renewed between my two
Tarantulae with increased fierceness. One of them, after holding
victory in the balance for a while, was at last thrown and received a
mortal wound in the head. He became the prey of the conqueror, who
tore open his skull and devoured it. After this curious duel, I kept
the victorious Tarantula alive for several weeks.'
My district does not boast the ordinary Tarantula, the Spider whose
habits have been described above by the Wizard of the Landes; but it
possesses an equivalent in the shape of the Black-bellied Tarantula, or
Narbonne Lycosa, half the size of the other, clad in black velvet on the
lower surface, especially under the belly, with brown chevrons on the
abdomen and grey and white rings around the legs. Her favourite home is
the dry, pebbly ground, covered with sun-scorched thyme. In my _harmas_
{6} laboratory there are quite twenty of this Spider's burrows. Rarely
do I pass by one of these haunts without giving a glance down the pit
where gleam, like diamonds, the four great eyes, the four telescopes, of
the hermit. The four others, which are much smaller, are not visible at
that depth.
Would I have greater riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards from my
house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, to-day a dreary
solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits from stone to
stone. The love of lucre has laid waste the land. Because wine paid
handsomely, they pulled up the forest to plant the vine. Then came the
Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished and the once green table-land is now
no more than a desolate stretch where a few tufts of hardy grasses sprout
among the pebbles. This waste-land is the Lycosa's paradise: in an
hour's time, if need were, I should discover a hundred burrows within a
limited range.
These dwellings are pits about a foot deep, perpendicular at first and
then bent elbow-wise. The average diameter is an inch. On the edge of
the hole stands a kerb, formed of straw, bits and scraps of all sorts and
even small pebbles, the size of a hazel-nut. The whole is kept in place
and cemented with silk. Often, the Spider confines herself to drawing
together the dry blades of the nearest grass, which she ties down with
the straps from her spinnerets, without removing the blades from the
stems; often, also, she rejects this scaffolding in favour of a masonry
constructed of small stones. The nature of the kerb is decided by the
nature of the materials within the Lycosa's reach, in the close
neighbourhood of the building-yard. There is no selection: everything
meets with approval, provided that it be near at hand.
Economy of time, therefore, causes the defensive wall to vary greatly as
regards its constituent elements. The height varies also. One enclosure
is a turret an inch high; another amounts to a mere rim. All have their
parts bound firmly together with silk; and all have the same width as the
subterranean channel, of which they are the extension. There is here no
difference in diameter between the underground manor and its outwork, nor
do we behold, at the opening, the platform which the turret leaves to
give free play to the Italian Tarantula's legs. The Black-bellied
Tarantula's work takes the form of a well surmounted by its kerb.
When the soil is earthy and homogeneous, the architectural type is free
from obstructions and the Spider's dwelling is a cylindrical tube; but,
when the site is pebbly, the shape is modified according to the
exigencies of the digging. In the second case, the lair is often a
rough, winding cave, at intervals along whose inner wall stick blocks of
stone avoided in the process of excavation. Whether regular or
irregular, the house is plastered to a certain depth with a coat of silk,
which prevents earth-slips and facilitates scaling when a prompt exit is
required.
Baglivi, in his unsophisticated Latin, teaches us how to catch the
Tarantula. I became his _rusticus insidiator_; I waved a spikelet at
the entrance of the burrow to imitate the humming of a Bee and attract
the attention of the Lycosa, who rushes out, thinking that she is
capturing a prey. This method did not succeed with me. The Spider, it
is true, leaves her remote apartments and comes a little way up the
vertical tube to enquire into the sounds at her door; but the wily animal
soon scents a trap; it remains motionless at mid-height and, at the least
alarm, goes down again to the branch gallery, where it is invisible.
Leon Dufour's appears to me a better method if it were only practicable
in the conditions wherein I find myself. To drive a knife quickly into
the ground, across the burrow, so as to cut off the Tarantula's retreat
when she is attracted by the spikelet and standing on the upper floor,
would be a manoeuvre certain of success, if the soil were favourable.
Unfortunately, this is not so in my case: you might as well try to dig a
knife into a block of tufa.
Other stratagems become necessary. Here are two which were successful: I
recommend them to future Tarantula-hunters. I insert into the burrow, as
far down as I can, a stalk with a fleshy spikelet, which the Spider can
bite into. I move and turn and twist my bait. The Tarantula, when
touched by the intruding body, contemplates self-defence and bites the
spikelet. A slight resistance informs my fingers that the animal has
fallen into the trap and seized the tip of the stalk in its fangs. I
draw it to me, slowly, carefully; the Spider hauls from below, planting
her legs against the wall. It comes, it rises. I hide as best I may,
when the Spider enters the perpendicular tunnel: if she saw me, she would
let go the bait and slip down again. I thus bring her, by degrees, to
the orifice. This is the difficult moment. If I continue the gentle
movement, the Spider, feeling herself dragged out of her home, would at
once run back indoors. It is impossible to get the suspicious animal out
by this means. Therefore, when it appears at the level of the ground, I
give a sudden pull. Surprised by this foul play, the Tarantula has no
time to release her hold; gripping the spikelet, she is thrown some
inches away from the burrow. Her capture now becomes an easy matter.
Outside her own house, the Lycosa is timid, as though scared, and hardly
capable of running away. To push her with a straw into a paper bag is
the affair of a second.
It requires some patience to bring the Tarantula who has bitten into the
insidious spikelet to the entrance of the burrow. The following method
is quicker: I procure a supply of live Bumble-bees. I put one into a
little bottle with a mouth just wide enough to cover the opening of the
burrow; and I turn the apparatus thus baited over the said opening. The
powerful Bee at first flutters and hums about her glass prison; then,
perceiving a burrow similar to that of her family, she enters it without
much hesitation. She is extremely ill-advised: while she goes down, the
Spider comes up; and the meeting takes place in the perpendicular
passage. For a few moments, the ear perceives a sort of death-song: it
is the humming of the Bumble-bee, protesting against the reception given
her. This is followed by a long silence. Then I remove the bottle and
dip a long-jawed forceps into the pit. I withdraw the Bumble-bee,
motionless, dead, with hanging proboscis. A terrible tragedy must have
happened. The Spider follows, refusing to let go so rich a booty. Game
and huntress are brought to the orifice. Sometimes, mistrustful, the
Lycosa goes in again; but we have only to leave the Bumble-bee on the
threshold of the door, or even a few inches away, to see her reappear,
issue from her fortress and daringly recapture her prey. This is the
moment: the house is closed with the finger, or a pebble and, as Baglivi
says, '_captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore_,' to which I will add,
'_adjuvante Bombo_.' {7}
The object of these hunting methods was not exactly to obtain Tarantulae;
I had not the least wish to rear the Spider in a bottle. I was
interested in a different matter. Here, thought I, is an ardent
huntress, living solely by her trade. She does not prepare preserved
foodstuffs for her offspring; {8} she herself feeds on the prey which she
catches. She is not a 'paralyzer,' {9} who cleverly spares her quarry so
as to leave it a glimmer of life and keep it fresh for weeks at a time;
she is a killer, who makes a meal off her capture on the spot. With her,
there is no methodical vivisection, which destroys movement without
entirely destroying life, but absolute death, as sudden as possible,
which protects the assailant from the counter-attacks of the assailed.
Her game, moreover, is essentially bulky and not always of the most
peaceful character. This Diana, ambushed in her tower, needs a prey
worthy of her prowess. The big Grasshopper, with the powerful jaws; the
irascible Wasp; the Bee, the Bumble-bee and other wearers of poisoned
daggers must fall into the ambuscade from time to time. The duel is
nearly equal in point of weapons. To the venomous fangs of the Lycosa
the Wasp opposes her venomous stiletto. Which of the two bandits shall
have the best of it? The struggle is a hand-to-hand one. The Tarantula
has no secondary means of defence, no cord to bind her victim, no trap to
subdue her. When the Epeira, or Garden Spider, sees an insect entangled
in her great upright web, she hastens up and covers the captive with
corded meshes and silk ribbons by the armful, making all resistance
impossible. When the prey is solidly bound, a prick is carefully
administered with the poison-fangs; then the Spider retires, waiting for
the death-throes to calm down, after which the huntress comes back to the
game. In these conditions, there is no serious danger.
In the case of the Lycosa, the job is riskier. She has naught to serve
her but her courage and her fangs and is obliged to leap upon the
formidable prey, to master it by her dexterity, to annihilate it, in a
measure, by her swift-slaying talent.
Annihilate is the word: the Bumble-bees whom I draw from the fatal hole
are a sufficient proof. As soon as that shrill buzzing, which I called
the death-song, ceases, in vain I hasten to insert my forceps: I always
bring out the insect dead, with slack proboscis and limp legs. Scarce a
few quivers of those legs tell me that it is a quite recent corpse. The
Bumble-bee's death is instantaneous. Each time that I take a fresh
victim from the terrible slaughter-house, my surprise is renewed at the
sight of its sudden immobility.
Nevertheless, both animals have very nearly the same strength; for I
choose my Bumble-bees from among the largest (_Bombus hortorum_ and _B.
terrestris_). Their weapons are almost equal: the Bee's dart can bear
comparison with the Spider's fangs; the sting of the first seems to me as
formidable as the bite of the second. How comes it that the Tarantula
always has the upper hand and this moreover in a very short conflict,
whence she emerges unscathed? There must certainly be some cunning
strategy on her part. Subtle though her poison may be, I cannot believe
that its mere injection, at any point whatever of the victim, is enough
to produce so prompt a catastrophe. The ill-famed rattlesnake does not
kill so quickly, takes hours to achieve that for which the Tarantula does
not require a second. We must, therefore, look for an explanation of
this sudden death to the vital importance of the point attacked by the
Spider, rather than to the virulence of the poison.
What is this point? It is impossible to recognize it on the Bumble-bees.
They enter the burrow; and the murder is committed far from sight. Nor
does the lens discover any wound upon the corpse, so delicate are the
weapons that produce it. One would have to see the two adversaries
engage in a direct contest. I have often tried to place a Tarantula and
a Bumble-bee face to face in the same bottle. The two animals mutually
flee each other, each being as much upset as the other at its captivity.
I have kept them together for twenty-four hours, without aggressive
display on either side. Thinking more of their prison than of attacking
each other, they temporize, as though indifferent. The experiment has
always been fruitless. I have succeeded with Bees and Wasps, but the
murder has been committed at night and has taught me nothing. I would
find both insects, next morning, reduced to a jelly under the Spider's
mandibles. A weak prey is a mouthful which the Spider reserves for the
calm of the night. A prey capable of resistance is not attacked in
captivity. The prisoner's anxiety cools the hunter's ardour.
The arena of a large bottle enables each athlete to keep out of the
other's way, respected by her adversary, who is respected in her turn.
Let us reduce the lists, diminish the enclosure. I put Bumble-bee and
Tarantula into a test-tube that has only room for one at the bottom. A
lively brawl ensues, without serious results. If the Bumble-bee be
underneath, she lies down on her back and with her legs wards off the
other as much as she can. I do not see her draw her sting. The Spider,
meanwhile, embracing the whole circumference of the enclosure with her
long legs, hoists herself a little upon the slippery surface and removes
herself as far as possible from her adversary. There, motionless, she
awaits events, which are soon disturbed by the fussy Bumble-bee. Should
the latter occupy the upper position, the Tarantula protects herself by
drawing up her legs, which keep the enemy at a distance. In short, save
for sharp scuffles when the two champions are in touch, nothing happens
that deserves attention. There is no duel to the death in the narrow
arena of the test-tube, any more than in the wider lists afforded by the
bottle. Utterly timid once she is away from home, the Spider obstinately
refuses the battle; nor will the Bumble-bee, giddy though she be, think
of striking the first blow. I abandon experiments in my study.
We must go direct to the spot and force the duel upon the Tarantula, who
is full of pluck in her own stronghold. Only, instead of the Bumble-bee,
who enters the burrow and conceals her death from our eyes, it is
necessary to substitute another adversary, less inclined to penetrate
underground. There abounds in the garden, at this moment, on the flowers
of the common clary, one of the largest and most powerful Bees that haunt
my district, the Carpenter-bee (_Xylocopa violacea_), clad in black
velvet, with wings of purple gauze. Her size, which is nearly an inch,
exceeds that of the Bumble-bee. Her sting is excruciating and produces a
swelling that long continues painful. I have very exact memories on this
subject, memories that have cost me dear. Here indeed is an antagonist
worthy of the Tarantula, if I succeed in inducing the Spider to accept
her. I place a certain number, one by one, in bottles small in capacity,
but having a wide neck capable of surrounding the entrance to the burrow.
As the prey which I am about to offer is capable of overawing the
huntress, I select from among the Tarantulae the lustiest, the boldest,
those most stimulated by hunger. The spikeleted stalk is pushed into the
burrow. When the Spider hastens up at once, when she is of a good size,
when she climbs boldly to the aperture of her dwelling, she is admitted
to the tourney; otherwise, she is refused. The bottle, baited with a
Carpenter-bee, is placed upside down over the door of one of the elect.
The Bee buzzes gravely in her glass bell; the huntress mounts from the
recesses of the cave; she is on the threshold, but inside; she looks; she
waits. I also wait. The quarters, the half-hours pass: nothing. The
Spider goes down again: she has probably judged the attempt too
dangerous. I move to a second, a third, a fourth burrow: still nothing;
the huntress refuses to leave her lair.
Fortune at last smiles upon my patience, which has been heavily tried by
all these prudent retreats and particularly by the fierce heat of the dog-
days. A Spider suddenly rushes from her hole: she has been rendered
warlike, doubtless, by prolonged abstinence. The tragedy that happens
under the cover of the bottle lasts for but the twinkling of an eye. It
is over: the sturdy Carpenter-bee is dead. Where did the murderess
strike her? That is easily ascertained: the Tarantula has not let go;
and her fangs are planted in the nape of the neck. The assassin has the
knowledge which I suspected: she has made for the essentially vital
centre, she has stung the insect's cervical ganglia with her
poison-fangs. In short, she has bitten the only point a lesion in which
produces sudden death. I was delighted with this murderous skill, which
made amends for the blistering which my skin received in the sun.
Once is not custom: one swallow does not make a summer. Is what I have
just seen due to accident or to premeditation? I turn to other Lycosae.
Many, a deal too many for my patience, stubbornly refuse to dart from
their haunts in order to attack the Carpenter-bee. The formidable quarry
is too much for their daring. Shall not hunger, which brings the wolf
from the wood, also bring the Tarantula out of her hole? Two, apparently
more famished than the rest, do at last pounce upon the Bee and repeat
the scene of murder before my eyes. The prey, again bitten in the neck,
exclusively in the neck, dies on the instant. Three murders, perpetrated
in my presence under identical conditions, represent the fruits of my
experiment pursued, on two occasions, from eight o'clock in the morning
until twelve midday.
I had seen enough. The quick insect-killer had taught me her trade as
had the paralyzer {10} before her: she had shown me that she is
thoroughly versed in the art of the butcher of the Pampas. {11} The
Tarantula is an accomplished _desnucador_. It remained to me to confirm
the open-air experiment with experiments in the privacy of my study. I
therefore got together a menagerie of these poisonous Spiders, so as to
judge of the virulence of their venom and its effect according to the
part of the body injured by the fangs. A dozen bottles and test-tubes
received the prisoners, whom I captured by the methods known to the
reader. To one inclined to scream at the sight of a Spider, my study,
filled with odious Lycosae, would have presented a very uncanny
appearance.
Though the Tarantula scorns or rather fears to attack an adversary placed
in her presence in a bottle, she scarcely hesitates to bite what is
thrust beneath her fangs. I take her by the thorax with my forceps and
present to her mouth the animal which I wish stung. Forthwith, if the
Spider be not already tired by experiments, the fangs are raised and
inserted. I first tried the effects of the bite upon the Carpenter-bee.
When struck in the neck, the Bee succumbs at once. It was the lightning
death which I witnessed on the threshold of the burrows. When struck in
the abdomen and then placed in a large bottle that leaves its movements
free, the insect seems, at first, to have suffered no serious injury. It
flutters about and buzzes. But half an hour has not elapsed before death
is imminent. The insect lies motionless upon its back or side. At most,
a few movements of the legs, a slight pulsation of the belly, continuing
till the morrow, proclaim that life has not yet entirely departed. Then
everything ceases: the Carpenter-bee is a corpse.
The importance of this experiment compels our attention. When stung in
the neck, the powerful Bee dies on the spot; and the Spider has not to
fear the dangers of a desperate struggle. Stung elsewhere, in the
abdomen, the insect is capable, for nearly half an hour, of making use of
its dart, its mandibles, its legs; and woe to the Lycosa whom the
stiletto reaches. I have seen some who, stabbed in the mouth while
biting close to the sting, died of the wound within the twenty-four
hours. That dangerous prey, therefore, requires instantaneous death,
produced by the injury to the nerve-centres of the neck; otherwise, the
hunter's life would often be in jeopardy.
The Grasshopper order supplied me with a second series of victims: Green
Grasshoppers as long as one's finger, large-headed Locusts, Ephippigerae.
{12} The same result follows when these are bitten in the neck:
lightning death. When injured elsewhere, notably in the abdomen, the
subject of the experiment resists for some time. I have seen a
Grasshopper, bitten in the belly, cling firmly for fifteen hours to the
smooth, upright wall of the glass bell that constituted his prison. At
last, he dropped off and died. Where the Bee, that delicate organism,
succumbs in less than half an hour, the Grasshopper, coarse ruminant that
he is, resists for a whole day. Put aside these differences, caused by
unequal degrees of organic sensitiveness, and we sum up as follows: when
bitten by the Tarantula in the neck, an insect, chosen from among the
largest, dies on the spot; when bitten elsewhere, it perishes also, but
after a lapse of time which varies considerably in the different
entomological orders.
This explains the long hesitation of the Tarantula, so wearisome to the
experimenter when he presents to her, at the entrance to the burrow, a
rich, but dangerous prey. The majority refuse to fling themselves upon
the Carpenter-bee. The fact is that a quarry of this kind cannot be
seized recklessly: the huntress who missed her stroke by biting at random
would do so at the risk of her life. The nape of the neck alone
possesses the desired vulnerability. The adversary must be nipped there
and no elsewhere. Not to floor her at once would mean to irritate her
and make her more dangerous than ever. The Spider is well aware of this.
In the safe shelter of her threshold, therefore, prepared to beat a quick
retreat if necessary, she watches for the favourable moment; she waits
for the big Bee to face her, when the neck is easily grabbed. If this
condition of success offer, she leaps out and acts; if not, weary of the
violent evolutions of the quarry, she retires indoors. And that, no
doubt, is why it took me two sittings of four hours apiece to witness
three assassinations.
Formerly, instructed by the paralysing Wasps, I had myself tried to
produce paralysis by injecting a drop of ammonia into the thorax of those
insects, such as Weevils, Buprestes, {13} and Dung-beetles, whose compact
nervous system assists this physiological operation. I showed myself a
ready pupil to my masters' teaching and used to paralyze a Buprestis or a
Weevil almost as well as a Cerceris {14} could have done. Why should I
not to-day imitate that expert butcher, the Tarantula? With the point of
a fine needle, I inject a tiny drop of ammonia at the base of the skull
of a Carpenter-bee or a Grasshopper. The insect succumbs then and there,
without any other movement than wild convulsions. When attacked by the
acrid fluid, the cervical ganglia cease to do their work; and death
ensues. Nevertheless, this death is not immediate; the throes last for
some time. The experiment is not wholly satisfactory as regards
suddenness. Why? Because the liquid which I employ, ammonia, cannot be
compared, for deadly efficacy, with the Lycosa's poison, a pretty
formidable poison, as we shall see.
I make a Tarantula bite the leg of a young, well-fledged Sparrow, ready
to leave the nest. A drop of blood flows; the wounded spot is surrounded
by a reddish circle, changing to purple. The bird almost immediately
loses the use of its leg, which drags, with the toes doubled in; it hops
upon the other. Apart from this, the patient does not seem to trouble
much about his hurt; his appetite is good. My daughters feed him on
Flies, bread-crumb, apricot-pulp. He is sure to get well, he will
recover his strength; the poor victim of the curiosity of science will be
restored to liberty. This is the wish, the intention of us all. Twelve
hours later, the hope of a cure increases; the invalid takes nourishment
readily; he clamours for it, if we keep him waiting. But the leg still
drags. I set this down to a temporary paralysis which will soon
disappear. Two days after, he refuses his food. Wrapping himself in his
stoicism and his rumpled feathers, the Sparrow hunches into a ball, now
motionless, now twitching. My girls take him in the hollow of their
hands and warm him with their breath. The spasms become more frequent. A
gasp proclaims that all is over. The bird is dead.
There was a certain coolness among us at the evening-meal. I read mute
reproaches, because of my experiment, in the eyes of my home-circle; I
read an unspoken accusation of cruelty all around me. The death of the
unfortunate Sparrow had saddened the whole family. I myself was not
without some remorse of conscience: the poor result achieved seemed to me
too dearly bought. I am not made of the stuff of those who, without
turning a hair, rip up live Dogs to find out nothing in particular.
Nevertheless, I had the courage to start afresh, this time on a Mole
caught ravaging a bed of lettuces. There was a danger lest my captive,
with his famished stomach, should leave things in doubt, if we had to
keep him for a few days. He might die not of his wound, but of
inanition, if I did not succeed in giving him suitable food, fairly
plentiful and dispensed at fairly frequent intervals. In that case, I
ran a risk of ascribing to the poison what might well be the result of
starvation. I must therefore begin by finding out if it was possible for
me to keep the Mole alive in captivity. The animal was put into a large
receptacle from which it could not get out and fed on a varied diet of
insects--Beetles, Grasshoppers, especially Cicadae {15}--which it
crunched up with an excellent appetite. Twenty-four hours of this
regimen convinced me that the Mole was making the best of the bill of
fare and taking kindly to his captivity.
I make the Tarantula bite him at the tip of the snout. When replaced in
his cage, the Mole keeps on scratching his nose with his broad paws. The
thing seems to burn, to itch. Henceforth, less and less of the provision
of Cicadae is consumed; on the evening of the following day, it is
refused altogether. About thirty-six hours after being bitten, the Mole
dies during the night and certainly not from inanition, for there are
still half a dozen live Cicadae in the receptacle, as well as a few
Beetles.
The bite of the Black-bellied Tarantula is therefore dangerous to other
animals than insects: it is fatal to the Sparrow, it is fatal to the
Mole. Up to what point are we to generalize? I do not know, because my
enquiries extended no further. Nevertheless, judging from the little
that I saw, it appears to me that the bite of this Spider is not an
accident which man can afford to treat lightly. This is all that I have
to say to the doctors.
To the philosophical entomologists I have something else to say: I have
to call their attention to the consummate knowledge of the
insect-killers, which vies with that of the paralyzers. I speak of
insect-killers in the plural, for the Tarantula must share her deadly art
with a host of other Spiders, especially with those who hunt without
nets. These insect-killers, who live on their prey, strike the game dead
instantaneously by stinging the nerve-centres of the neck; the
paralyzers, on the other hand, who wish to keep the food fresh for their
larvae, destroy the power of movement by stinging the game in the other
nerve-centres. Both of them attack the nervous chain, but they select
the point according to the object to be attained. If death be desired,
sudden death, free from danger to the huntress, the insect is attacked in
the neck; if mere paralysis be required, the neck is respected and the
lower segments--sometimes one alone, sometimes three, sometimes all or
nearly all, according to the special organization of the victim--receive
the dagger-thrust.
Even the paralyzers, at least some of them, are acquainted with the
immense vital importance of the nerve-centres of the neck. We have seen
the Hairy Ammophila munching the caterpillar's brain, the Languedocian
Sphex munching the brain of the Ephippigera, with the object of inducing
a passing torpor. But they simply squeeze the brain and do even this
with a wise discretion; they are careful not to drive their sting into
this fundamental centre of life; not one of them ever thinks of doing so,
for the result would be a corpse which the larva would despise. The
Spider, on the other hand, inserts her double dirk there and there alone;
any elsewhere it would inflict a wound likely to increase resistance
through irritation. She wants a venison for consumption without delay
and brutally thrusts her fangs into the spot which the others so
conscientiously respect.
If the instinct of these scientific murderers is not, in both cases, an
inborn predisposition, inseparable from the animal, but an acquired
habit, then I rack my brain in vain to understand how that habit can have
been acquired. Shroud these facts in theoretic mists as much as you
will, you shall never succeed in veiling the glaring evidence which they
afford of a pre-established order of things.
CHAPTER II: THE BANDED EPEIRA
In the inclement season of the year, when the insect has nothing to do
and retires to winter quarters, the observer profits by the mildness of
the sunny nooks and grubs in the sand, lifts the stones, searches the
brushwood; and often he is stirred with a pleasurable excitement, when he
lights upon some ingenious work of art, discovered unawares. Happy are
the simple of heart whose ambition is satisfied with such treasure-trove!
I wish them all the joys which it has brought me and which it will
continue to bring me, despite the vexations of life, which grow ever more
bitter as the years follow their swift downward course.
Should the seekers rummage among the wild grasses in the osier-beds and
copses, I wish them the delight of finding the wonderful object that, at
this moment, lies before my eyes. It is the work of a Spider, the nest
of the Banded Epeira (_Epeira fasciata_, LATR.).
A Spider is not an insect, according to the rules of classification; and
as such the Epeira seems out of place here. {16} A fig for systems! It
is immaterial to the student of instinct whether the animal have eight
legs instead of six, or pulmonary sacs instead of air-tubes. Besides,
the Araneida belong to the group of segmented animals, organized in
sections placed end to end, a structure to which the terms 'insect' and
'entomology' both refer.
Formerly, to describe this group, people said 'articulate animals,' an
expression which possessed the drawback of not jarring on the ear and of
being understood by all. This is out of date. Nowadays, they use the
euphonious term 'Arthropoda.' And to think that there are men who
question the existence of progress! Infidels! Say, 'articulate,' first;
then roll out, 'Arthropoda;' and you shall see whether zoological science
is not progressing!
In bearing and colouring, _Epeira fasciata_ is the handsomest of the
Spiders of the South. On her fat belly, a mighty silk-warehouse nearly
as large as a hazel-nut, are alternate yellow, black and silver sashes,
to which she owes her epithet of Banded. Around that portly abdomen, the
eight long legs, with their dark- and pale-brown rings, radiate like
spokes.
Any small prey suits her; and, as long as she can find supports for her
web, she settles wherever the Locust hops, wherever the Fly hovers,
wherever the Dragon-fly dances or the Butterfly flits. As a rule,
because of the greater abundance of game, she spreads her toils across
some brooklet, from bank to bank among the rushes. She also stretches
them, but not assiduously, in the thickets of evergreen oak, on the
slopes with the scrubby greenswards, dear to the Grasshoppers.
Her hunting-weapon is a large upright web, whose outer boundary, which
varies according to the disposition of the ground, is fastened to the
neighbouring branches by a number of moorings. The structure is that
adopted by the other weaving Spiders. Straight threads radiate at equal
intervals from a central point. Over this framework runs a continuous
spiral thread, forming chords, or cross-bars, from the centre to the
circumference. It is magnificently large and magnificently symmetrical.
In the lower part of the web, starting from the centre, a wide opaque
ribbon descends zigzag-wise across the radii. This is the Epeira's trade-
mark, the flourish of an artist initialling his creation. '_Fecit_ So-
and-so,' she seems to say, when giving the last throw of the shuttle to
her handiwork.
That the Spider feels satisfied when, after passing and repassing from
spoke to spoke, she finishes her spiral, is beyond a doubt: the work
achieved ensures her food for a few days to come. But, in this
particular case, the vanity of the spinstress has naught to say to the
matter: the strong silk zigzag is added to impart greater firmness to the
web.
Increased resistance is not superfluous, for the net is sometimes exposed
to severe tests. The Epeira cannot pick and choose her prizes. Seated
motionless in the centre of her web, her eight legs wide-spread to feel
the shaking of the network in any direction, she waits for what luck will
bring her: now some giddy weakling unable to control its flight, anon
some powerful prey rushing headlong with a reckless bound.
The Locust in particular, the fiery Locust, who releases the spring of
his long shanks at random, often falls into the trap. One imagines that
his strength ought to frighten the Spider; the kick of his spurred levers
should enable him to make a hole, then and there, in the web and to get
away. But not at all. If he does not free himself at the first effort,
the Locust is lost.
Turning her back on the game, the Epeira works all her spinnerets,
pierced like the rose of a watering-pot, at one and the same time. The
silky spray is gathered by the hind-legs, which are longer than the
others and open into a wide arc to allow the stream to spread. Thanks to
this artifice, the Epeira this time obtains not a thread, but an
iridescent sheet, a sort of clouded fan wherein the component threads are
kept almost separate. The two hind-legs fling this shroud gradually, by
rapid alternate armfuls, while, at the same time, they turn the prey over
and over, swathing it completely.
The ancient _retiarius_, when pitted against a powerful wild beast,
appeared in the arena with a rope-net folded over his left shoulder. The
animal made its spring. The man, with a sudden movement of his right
arm, cast the net after the manner of the fishermen; he covered the beast
and tangled it in the meshes. A thrust of the trident gave the quietus
to the vanquished foe.
The Epeira acts in like fashion, with this advantage, that she is able to
renew her armful of fetters. Should the first not suffice, a second
instantly follows and another and yet another, until the reserves of silk
become exhausted.
When all movement ceases under the snowy winding-sheet, the Spider goes
up to her bound prisoner. She has a better weapon than the _bestiarius_'
trident: she has her poison-fangs. She gnaws at the Locust, without
undue persistence, and then withdraws, leaving the torpid patient to pine
away.
Soon she comes back to her motionless head of game: she sucks it, drains
it, repeatedly changing her point of attack. At last, the clean-bled
remains are flung out of the net and the Spider returns to her ambush in
the centre of the web.
What the Epeira sucks is not a corpse, but a numbed body. If I remove
the Locust immediately after he has been bitten and release him from the
silken sheath, the patient recovers his strength to such an extent that
he seems, at first, to have suffered no injury. The Spider, therefore,
does not kill her capture before sucking its juices; she is content to
deprive it of the power of motion by producing a state of torpor. Perhaps
this kindlier bite gives her greater facility in working her pump. The
humours, if stagnant, in a corpse, would not respond so readily to the
action of the sucker; they are more easily extracted from a live body, in
which they move about.
The Epeira, therefore, being a drinker of blood, moderates the virulence
of her sting, even with victims of appalling size, so sure is she of her
retiarian art. The long-legged Tryxalis, {17} the corpulent Grey Locust,
the largest of our Grasshoppers are accepted without hesitation and
sucked dry as soon as numbed. Those giants, capable of making a hole in
the net and passing through it in their impetuous onrush, can be but
rarely caught. I myself place them on the web. The Spider does the
rest. Lavishing her silky spray, she swathes them and then sucks the
body at her ease. With an increased expenditure of the spinnerets, the
very biggest game is mastered as successfully as the everyday prey.
I have seen even better than that. This time, my subject is the Silky
Epeira (_Epeira sericea_, OLIV.), with a broad, festooned, silvery
abdomen. Like that of the other, her web is large, upright and 'signed'
with a zigzag ribbon. I place upon it a Praying Mantis, {18} a
well-developed specimen, quite capable of changing roles, should
circumstances permit, and herself making a meal off her assailant. It is
a question no longer of capturing a peaceful Locust, but a fierce and
powerful ogre, who would rip open the Epeira's paunch with one blow of
her harpoons.
Will the Spider dare? Not immediately. Motionless in the centre of her
net, she consults her strength before attacking the formidable quarry;
she waits until the struggling prey has its claws more thickly entangled.
At last, she approaches. The Mantis curls her belly; lifts her wings
like vertical sails; opens her saw-toothed arm-pieces; in short, adopts
the spectral attitude which she employs when delivering battle.
The Spider disregards these menaces. Spreading wide her spinnerets, she
pumps out sheets of silk which the hind-legs draw out, expand and fling
without stint in alternate armfuls. Under this shower of threads, the
Mantis' terrible saws, the lethal legs, quickly disappear from sight, as
do the wings, still erected in the spectral posture.
Meanwhile, the swathed one gives sudden jerks, which make the Spider fall
out of her web. The accident is provided for. A safety-cord, emitted at
the same instant by the spinnerets, keeps the Epeira hanging, swinging in
space. When calm is restored, she packs her cord and climbs up again.
The heavy paunch and the hind-legs are now bound. The flow slackens, the
silk comes only in thin sheets. Fortunately, the business is done. The
prey is invisible under the thick shroud.
The Spider retires without giving a bite. To master the terrible quarry,
she has spent the whole reserves of her spinning-mill, enough to weave
many good-sized webs. With this heap of shackles, further precautions
are superfluous.
After a short rest in the centre of the net, she comes down to dinner.
Slight incisions are made in different parts of the prize, now here, now
there; and the Spider puts her mouth to each and sucks the blood of her
prey. The meal is long protracted, so rich is the dish. For ten hours,
I watch the insatiable glutton, who changes her point of attack as each
wound sucked dries up. Night comes and robs me of the finish of the
unbridled debauch. Next morning, the drained Mantis lies upon the
ground. The Ants are eagerly devouring the remains.
The eminent talents of the Epeirae are displayed to even better purpose
in the industrial business of motherhood than in the art of the chase.
The silk bag, the nest, in which the Banded Epeira houses her eggs, is a
much greater marvel than the bird's nest. In shape, it is an inverted
balloon, nearly the size of a Pigeon's egg. The top tapers like a pear
and is cut short and crowned with a scalloped rim, the corners of which
are lengthened by means of moorings that fasten the object to the
adjoining twigs. The whole, a graceful ovoid, hangs straight down, amid
a few threads that steady it.
The top is hollowed into a crater closed with a silky padding. Every
other part is contained in the general wrapper, formed of thick, compact
white satin, difficult to break and impervious to moisture. Brown and
even black silk, laid out in abroad ribbons, in spindle-shaped patterns,
in fanciful meridian waves, adorns the upper portion of the exterior. The
part played by this fabric is self-evident: it is a waterproof cover
which neither dew nor rain can penetrate.
Exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, among the dead grasses,
close to the ground, the Epeira's nest has also to protect its contents
from the winter cold. Let us cut the wrapper with our scissors.
Underneath, we find a thick layer of reddish-brown silk, not worked into
a fabric this time, but puffed into an extra-fine wadding. It is a
fleecy cloud, an incomparable quilt, softer than any swan's-down. This
is the screen set up against loss of heat.
And what does this cosy mass protect? See: in the middle of the
eiderdown hangs a cylindrical pocket, round at the bottom, cut square at
the top and closed with a padded lid. It is made of extremely fine
satin; it contains the Epeira's eggs, pretty little orange-coloured
beads, which, glued together, form a globule the size of a pea. This is
the treasure to be defended against the asperities of the winter.
Now that we know the structure of the work, let us try to see in what
manner the spinstress sets about it. The observation is not an easy one,
for the Banded Epeira is a night-worker. She needs nocturnal quiet in
order not to go astray amid the complicated rules that guide her
industry. Now and again, at very early hours in the morning, I have
happened to catch her working, which enables me to sum up the progress of
the operations.
My subjects are busy in their bell-shaped cages, at about the middle of
August. A scaffolding is first run up, at the top of the dome; it
consists of a few stretched threads. The wire trellis represents the
twigs and the blades of grass which the Spider, if at liberty, would have
used as suspension-points. The loom works on this shaky support. The
Epeira does not see what she is doing; she turns her back on her task.
The machinery is so well put together that the whole thing goes
automatically.
The tip of the abdomen sways, a little to the right, a little to the
left, rises and falls, while the Spider moves slowly round and round. The
thread paid out is single. The hind-legs draw it out and place it in
position on that which is already done. Thus is formed a satin
receptacle the rim of which is gradually raised until it becomes a bag
about a centimetre deep. {19} The texture is of the daintiest. Guy-ropes
bind it to the nearest threads and keep it stretched, especially at the
mouth.
Then the spinnerets take a rest and the turn of the ovaries comes. A
continuous shower of eggs falls into the bag, which is filled to the top.
The capacity of the receptacle has been so nicely calculated that there
is room for all the eggs, without leaving any space unoccupied. When the
Spider has finished and retires, I catch a momentary glimpse of the heap
of orange-coloured eggs; but the work of the spinnerets is at once
resumed.
The next business is to close the bag. The machinery works a little
differently. The tip of the belly no longer sways from side to side. It
sinks and touches a point; it retreats, sinks again and touches another
point, first here, then there, describing inextricable zigzags. At the
same time, the hind-legs tread the material emitted. The result is no
longer a stuff, but a felt, a blanketing.
Around the satin capsule, which contains the eggs, is the eiderdown
destined to keep out the cold. The youngsters will bide for some time in
this soft shelter, to strengthen their joints and prepare for the final
exodus. It does not take long to make. The spinning-mill suddenly
alters the raw material: it was turning out white silk; it now furnishes
reddish-brown silk, finer than the other and issuing in clouds which the
hind-legs, those dexterous carders, beat into a sort of froth. The egg-
pocket disappears, drowned in this exquisite wadding.
The balloon-shape is already outlined; the top of the work tapers to a
neck. The Spider, moving up and down, tacking first to one side and then
to the other, from the very first spray marks out the graceful form as
accurately as though she carried a compass in her abdomen.
Then, once again, with the same suddenness, the material changes. The
white silk reappears, wrought into thread. This is the moment to weave
the outer wrapper. Because of the thickness of the stuff and the density
of its texture, this operation is the longest of the series.
First, a few threads are flung out, hither and thither, to keep the layer
of wadding in position. The Epeira takes special pains with the edge of
the neck, where she fashions an indented border, the angles of which,
prolonged with cords or lines, form the main support of the building. The
spinnerets never touch this part without giving it, each time, until the
end of the work, a certain added solidity, necessary to secure the
stability of the balloon. The suspensory indentations soon outline a
crater which needs plugging. The Spider closes the bag with a padded
stopper similar to that with which she sealed the egg-pocket.
When these arrangements are made, the real manufacture of the wrapper
begins. The Spider goes backwards and forwards, turns and turns again.
The spinnerets do not touch the fabric. With a rhythmical, alternate
movement, the hind-legs, the sole implements employed, draw the thread,
seize it in their combs and apply it to the work, while the tip of the
abdomen sways methodically to and fro.
In this way, the silken fibre is distributed in an even zigzag, of almost
geometrical precision and comparable with that of the cotton thread which
the machines in our factories roll so neatly into balls. And this is
repeated all over the surface of the work, for the Spider shifts her
position a little at every moment.
At fairly frequent intervals, the tip of the abdomen is lifted to the
mouth of the balloon; and then the spinnerets really touch the fringed
edge. The length of contact is even considerable. We find, therefore,
that the thread is stuck in this star-shaped fringe, the foundation of
the building and the crux of the whole, while every elsewhere it is
simply laid on, in a manner determined by the movements of the hind-legs.
If we wished to unwind the work, the thread would break at the margin; at
any other point, it would unroll.
The Epeira ends her web with a dead-white, angular flourish; she ends her
nest with brown mouldings, which run down, irregularly, from the marginal
junction to the bulging middle. For this purpose, she makes use, for the
third time, of a different silk; she now produces silk of a dark hue,
varying from russet to black. The spinnerets distribute the material
with a wide longitudinal swing, from pole to pole; and the hind-legs
apply it in capricious ribbons. When this is done, the work is finished.
The Spider moves away with slow strides, without giving a glance at the
bag. The rest does not interest her: time and the sun will see to it.
She felt her hour at hand and came down from her web. Near by, in the
rank grass, she wove the tabernacle of her offspring and, in so doing,
drained her resources. To resume her hunting-post, to return to her web
would be useless to her: she has not the wherewithal to bind the prey.
Besides, the fine appetite of former days has gone. Withered and
languid, she drags out her existence for a few days and, at last, dies.
This is how things happen in my cages; this is how they must happen in
the brushwood.
The Silky Epeira (_Epeira sericea_, OLIV.) excels the Banded Epeira in
the manufacture of big hunting-nets, but she is less gifted in the art of
nest-building. She gives her nest the inelegant form of an obtuse cone.
The opening of this pocket is very wide and is scalloped into lobes by
which the edifice is slung. It is closed with a large lid, half satin,
half swan's-down. The rest is a stout white fabric, frequently covered
with irregular brown streaks.
The difference between the work of the two Epeirae does not extend beyond
the wrapper, which is an obtuse cone in the one case and a balloon in the
other. The same internal arrangements prevail behind this frontage:
first, a flossy quilt; next, a little keg in which the eggs are packed.
Though the two Spiders build the outer wall according to special
architectural rules, they both employ the same means as a protection
against the cold.
As we see, the egg-bag of the Epeirae, particularly that of the Banded
Epeira, is an important and complex work. Various materials enter into
its composition: white silk, red silk, brown silk; moreover, these
materials are worked into dissimilar products: stout cloth, soft
eiderdown, dainty satinette, porous felt. And all of this comes from the
same workshop that weaves the hunting-net, warps the zigzag ribbon-band
and casts an entangling shroud over the prey.
What a wonderful silk-factory it is! With a very simple and
never-varying plant, consisting of the hind-legs and the spinnerets, it
produces, by turns, rope-maker's, spinner's, weaver's, ribbon-maker's and
fuller's work. How does the Spider direct an establishment of this kind?
How does she obtain, at will, skeins of diverse hues and grades? How
does she turn them out, first in this fashion, then in that? I see the
results, but I do not understand the machinery and still less the
process. It beats me altogether.
The Spider also sometimes loses her head in her difficult trade, when
some trouble disturbs the peace of her nocturnal labours. I do not
provoke this trouble myself, for I am not present at those unseasonable
hours. It is simply due to the conditions prevailing in my menagerie.
In their natural state, the Epeirae settle separately, at long distances
from one another. Each has her own hunting-grounds, where there is no
reason to fear the competition that would result from the close proximity
of the nets. In my cages, on the other hand, there is cohabitation. In
order to save space, I lodge two or three Epeirae in the same cage. My
easy-going captives live together in peace. There is no strife between
them, no encroaching on the neighbour's property. Each of them weaves
herself a rudimentary web, as far from the rest as possible, and here,
rapt in contemplation, as though indifferent to what the others are
doing, she awaits the hop of the Locust.
Nevertheless, these close quarters have their drawbacks when laying-time
arrives. The cords by which the different establishments are hung
interlace and criss-cross in a confused network. When one of them
shakes, all the others are more or less affected. This is enough to
distract the layer from her business and to make her do silly things.
Here are two instances.
A bag has been woven during the night. I find it, when I visit the cage
in the morning, hanging from the trellis-work and completed. It is
perfect, as regards structure; it is decorated with the regulation black
meridian curves. There is nothing missing, nothing except the essential
thing, the eggs, for which the spinstress has gone to such expense in the
matter of silks. Where are the eggs? They are not in the bag, which I
open and find empty. They are lying on the ground below, on the sand in
the pan, utterly unprotected.
Disturbed at the moment of discharging them, the mother has missed the
mouth of the little bag and dropped them on the floor. Perhaps even, in
her excitement, she came down from above and, compelled by the exigencies
of the ovaries, laid her eggs on the first support that offered. No
matter: if her Spider brain contains the least gleam of sense, she must
be aware of the disaster and is therefore bound at once to abandon the
elaborate manufacture of a now superfluous nest.
Not at all: the bag is woven around nothing, as accurate in shape, as
finished in structure as under normal conditions. The absurd
perseverance displayed by certain Bees, whose egg and provisions I used
to remove, {20} is here repeated without the slightest interference from
me. My victims used scrupulously to seal up their empty cells. In the
same way, the Epeira puts the eiderdown quilting and the taffeta wrapper
round a capsule that contains nothing.
Another, distracted from her work by some startling vibration, leaves her
nest at the moment when the layer of red-brown wadding is being
completed. She flees to the dome, at a few inches above her unfinished
work, and spends upon a shapeless mattress, of no use whatever, all the
silk with which she would have woven the outer wrapper if nothing had
come to disturb her.
Poor fool! You upholster the wires of your cage with swan's-down and you
leave the eggs imperfectly protected. The absence of the work already
executed and the hardness of the metal do not warn you that you are now
engaged upon a senseless task. You remind me of the Pelopaeus, {21} who
used to coat with mud the place on the wall whence her nest had been
removed. You speak to me, in your own fashion, of a strange psychology
which is able to reconcile the wonders of a master craftsmanship with
aberrations due to unfathomable stupidity.
Let us compare the work of the Banded Epeira with that of the Penduline
Titmouse, the cleverest of our small birds in the art of nest-building.
This Tit haunts the osier-beds of the lower reaches of the Rhone. Rocking
gently in the river breeze, his nest sways pendent over the peaceful
backwaters, at some distance from the too-impetuous current. It hangs
from the drooping end of the branch of a poplar, an old willow or an
alder, all of them tall trees, favouring the banks of streams.
It consists of a cotton bag, closed all round, save for a small opening
at the side, just sufficient to allow of the mother's passage. In shape,
it resembles the body of an alembic, a chemist's retort with a short
lateral neck, or, better still, the foot of a stocking, with the edges
brought together, but for a little round hole left at one side. The
outward appearances increase the likeness: one can almost see the traces
of a knitting-needle working with coarse stitches. That is why, struck
by this shape, the Provencal peasant, in his expressive language, calls
the Penduline _lou Debassaire_, the Stocking-knitter.
The early-ripening seedlets of the widows and poplars furnish the
materials for the work. There breaks from them, in May, a sort of vernal
snow, a fine down, which the eddies of the air heap in the crevices of
the ground. It is a cotton similar to that of our manufactures, but of
very short staple. It comes from an inexhaustible warehouse: the tree is
bountiful; and the wind from the osier-beds gathers the tiny flocks as
they pour from the seeds. They are easy to pick up.
The difficulty is to set to work. How does the bird proceed, in order to
knit its stocking? How, with such simple implements as its beak and
claws, does it manage to produce a fabric which our skilled fingers would
fail to achieve? An examination of the nest will inform us, to a certain
extent.
The cotton of the poplar cannot, of itself, supply a hanging pocket
capable of supporting the weight of the brood and resisting the buffeting
of the wind. Rammed, entangled and packed together, the flocks, similar
to those which ordinary wadding would give if chopped up very fine, would
produce only an agglomeration devoid of cohesion and liable to be
dispelled by the first breath of air. They require a canvas, a warp, to
keep them in position.
Tiny dead stalks, with fibrous barks, well softened by the action of
moisture and the air, furnish the Penduline with a coarse tow, not unlike
that of hemp. With these ligaments, purged of every woody particle and
tested for flexibility and tenacity, he winds a number of loops round the
end of the branch which he has selected as a support for his structure.
It is not a very accurate piece of work. The loops run clumsily and
anyhow: some are slacker, others tighter; but, when all is said, it is
solid, which is the main point. Also, this fibrous sheath, the keystone
of the edifice, occupies a fair length of branch, which enables the
fastenings for the net to be multiplied.
The several straps, after describing a certain number of turns, ravel out
at the ends and hang loose. After them come interlaced threads, greater
in number and finer in texture. In the tangled jumble occur what might
almost be described as weaver's knots. As far as one can judge by the
result alone, without having seen the bird at work, this is how the
canvas, the support of the cotton wall, is obtained.
This warp, this inner framework, is obviously not constructed in its
entirety from the start; it goes on gradually, as the bird stuffs the
part above it with cotton. The wadding, picked up bit by bit from the
ground, is teazled by the bird's claws and inserted, all fleecy, into the
meshes of the canvas. The beak pushes it, the breast presses it, both
inside and out. The result is a soft felt a couple of inches thick.
Near the top of the pouch, on one side, is contrived a narrow orifice,
tapering into a short neck. This is the kitchen-door. In order to pass
through it, the Penduline, small though he be, has to force the elastic
partition, which yields slightly and then contracts. Lastly, the house
is furnished with a mattress of first-quality cotton. Here lie from six
to eight white eggs, the size of a cherry-stone.
Well, this wonderful nest is a barbarous casemate compared with that of
the Banded Epeira. As regards shape, this stocking-foot cannot be
mentioned in the same breath with the Spider's elegant and faultlessly-
rounded balloon. The fabric of mixed cotton and tow is a rustic frieze
beside the spinstress' satin; the suspension-straps are clumsy cables
compared with her delicate silk fastenings. Where shall we find in the
Penduline's mattress aught to vie with the Epeira's eiderdown, that
teazled russet gossamer? The Spider is superior to the bird in every
way, in so far as concerns her work.
But, on her side, the Penduline is a more devoted mother. For weeks on
end, squatting at the bottom of her purse, she presses to her heart the
eggs, those little white pebbles from which the warmth of her body will
bring forth life. The Epeira knows not these softer passions. Without
bestowing a second glance an it, she abandons her nest to its fate, be it
good or ill.
CHAPTER III: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA
The Epeira, who displays such astonishing industry to give her eggs a
dwelling-house of incomparable perfection, becomes, after that, careless
of her family. For what reason? She lacks the time. She has to die
when the first cold comes, whereas the eggs are destined to pass the
winter in their downy snuggery. The desertion of the nest is inevitable,
owing to the very force of things. But, if the hatching were earlier and
took place in the Epeira's lifetime, I imagine that she would rival the
bird in devotion.
So I gather from the analogy of _Thomisus onustus_, WALCK., a shapely
Spider who weaves no web, lies in wait for her prey and walks sideways,
after the manner of the Crab. I have spoken elsewhere {22} of her
encounters with the Domestic Bee, whom she jugulates by biting her in the
neck.
Skilful in the prompt despatch of her prey, the little Crab Spider is no
less well-versed in the nesting art. I find her settled on a privet in
the enclosure. Here, in the heart of a cluster of flowers, the luxurious
creature plaits a little pocket of white satin, shaped like a wee
thimble. It is the receptacle for the eggs. A round, flat lid, of a
felted fabric, closes the mouth.
Above this ceiling rises a dome of stretched threads and faded flowerets
which have fallen from the cluster. This is the watcher's belvedere, her
conning-tower. An opening, which is always free, gives access to this
post.
Here the Spider remains on constant duty. She has thinned greatly since
she laid her eggs, has almost lost her corporation. At the least alarm,
she sallies forth, waves a threatening limb at the passing stranger and
invites him, with a gesture, to keep his distance. Having put the
intruder to flight, she quickly returns indoors.
And what does she do in there, under her arch of withered flowers and
silk? Night and day, she shields the precious eggs with her poor body
spread out flat. Eating is neglected. No more lying in wait, no more
Bees drained to the last drop of blood. Motionless, rapt in meditation,
the Spider is in an incubating posture, in other words, she is sitting on
her eggs. Strictly speaking, the word 'incubating' means that and
nothing else.
The brooding Hen is no more assiduous, but she is also a
heating-apparatus and, with the gentle warmth of her body, awakens the
germs to life. For the Spider, the heat of the sun suffices; and this
alone keeps me from saying that she 'broods.'
For two or three weeks, more and more wrinkled by abstinence, the little
Spider never relaxes her position. Then comes the hatching. The
youngsters stretch a few threads in swing-like curves from twig to twig.
The tiny rope-dancers practise for some days in the sun; then they
disperse, each intent upon his own affairs.
Let us now look at the watch-tower of the nest. The mother is still
there, but this time lifeless. The devoted creature has known the
delight of seeing her family born; she has assisted the weaklings through
the trap-door; and, when her duty was done, very gently she died. The
Hen does not reach this height of self-abnegation.
Other Spiders do better still, as, for instance, the Narbonne Lycosa, or
Black-bellied Tarantula (_Lycosa narbonnensis_, WALCK.), whose prowess
has been described in an earlier chapter. The reader will remember her
burrow, her pit of a bottle-neck's width, dug in the pebbly soil beloved
by the lavender and the thyme. The mouth is rimmed by a bastion of
gravel and bits of wood cemented with silk. There is nothing else around
her dwelling: no web, no snares of any kind.
From her inch-high turret, the Lycosa lies in wait for the passing
Locust. She gives a bound, pursues the prey and suddenly deprives it of
motion with a bite in the neck. The game is consumed on the spot, or
else in the lair; the insect's tough hide arouses no disgust. The sturdy
huntress is not a drinker of blood, like the Epeira; she needs solid
food, food that crackles between the jaws. She is like a Dog devouring
his bone.
Would you care to bring her to the light of day from the depths of her
well? Insert a thin straw into the burrow and move it about. Uneasy as
to what is happening above, the recluse hastens to climb up and stops, in
a threatening attitude, at some distance from the orifice. You see her
eight eyes gleaming like diamonds in the dark; you see her powerful
poison-fangs yawning, ready to bite. He who is not accustomed to the
sight of this horror, rising from under the ground, cannot suppress a
shiver. B-r-r-r-r! Let us leave the beast alone.
Chance, a poor stand-by, sometimes contrives very well. At the beginning
of the month of August, the children call me to the far side of the
enclosure, rejoicing in a find which they have made under the rosemary-
bushes. It is a magnificent Lycosa, with an enormous belly, the sign of
an impending delivery.
The obese Spider is gravely devouring something in the midst of a circle
of onlookers. And what? The remains of a Lycosa a little smaller than
herself, the remains of her male. It is the end of the tragedy that
concludes the nuptials. The sweetheart is eating her lover. I allow the
matrimonial rites to be fulfilled in all their horror; and, when the last
morsel of the unhappy wretch has been scrunched up, I incarcerate the
terrible matron under a cage standing in an earthen pan filled with sand.
Early one morning, ten days later, I find her preparing for her
confinement. A silk network is first spun on the ground, covering an
extent about equal to the palm of one's hand. It is coarse and
shapeless, but firmly fixed. This is the floor on which the Spider means
to operate.
On this foundation, which acts as a protection from the sand, the Lycosa
fashions a round mat, the size of a two-franc piece and made of superb
white silk. With a gentle, uniform movement, which might be regulated by
the wheels of a delicate piece of clockwork, the tip of the abdomen rises
and falls, each time touching the supporting base a little farther away,
until the extreme scope of the mechanism is attained.
Then, without the Spider's moving her position, the oscillation is
resumed in the opposite direction. By means of this alternate motion,
interspersed with numerous contacts, a segment of the sheet is obtained,
of a very accurate texture. When this is done, the Spider moves a little
along a circular line and the loom works in the same manner on another
segment.
The silk disk, a sort of hardly concave paten, now no longer receives
aught from the spinnerets in its centre; the marginal belt alone
increases in thickness. The piece thus becomes a bowl-shaped porringer,
surrounded by a wide, flat edge.
The time for the laying has come. With one quick emission, the viscous,
pale-yellow eggs are laid in the basin, where they heap together in the
shape of a globe which projects largely outside the cavity. The
spinnerets are once more set going. With short movements, as the tip of
the abdomen rises and falls to weave the round mat, they cover up the
exposed hemisphere. The result is a pill set in the middle of a circular
carpet.
The legs, hitherto idle, are now working. They take up and break off one
by one the threads that keep the round mat stretched on the coarse
supporting network. At the same time, the fangs grip this sheet, lift it
by degrees, tear it from its base and fold it over upon the globe of
eggs. It is a laborious operation. The whole edifice totters, the floor
collapses, fouled with sand. By a movement of the legs, those soiled
shreds are cast aside. Briefly, by means of violent tugs of the fangs,
which pull, and broom-like efforts of the legs, which clear away, the
Lycosa extricates the bag of eggs and removes it as a clear-cut mass,
free from any adhesion.
It is a white-silk pill, soft to the touch and glutinous. Its size is
that of an average cherry. An observant eye will notice, running
horizontally around the middle, a fold which a needle is able to raise
without breaking it. This hem, generally undistinguishable from the rest
of the surface, is none other than the edge of the circular mat, drawn
over the lower hemisphere. The other hemisphere, through which the
youngsters will go out, is less well fortified: its only wrapper is the
texture spun over the eggs immediately after they were laid.
Inside, there is nothing but the eggs: no mattress, no soft eiderdown,
like that of the Epeirae. The Lycosa, indeed, has no need to guard her
eggs against the inclemencies of the winter, for the hatching will take
place long before the cold weather comes. Similarly, the Thomisus, with
her early brood, takes good care not to incur useless expenditure: she
gives her eggs, for their protection, a simple purse of satin.
The work of spinning, followed by that of tearing, is continued for a
whole morning, from five to nine o'clock. Worn out with fatigue, the
mother embraces her dear pill and remains motionless. I shall see no
more to-day. Next morning, I find the Spider carrying the bag of eggs
slung from her stern.
Henceforth, until the hatching, she does not leave go of the precious
burden, which, fastened to the spinnerets by a short ligament, drags and
bumps along the ground. With this load banging against her heels, she
goes about her business; she walks or rests, she seeks her prey, attacks
it and devours it. Should some accident cause the wallet to drop off, it
is soon replaced. The spinnerets touch it somewhere, anywhere, and that
is enough: adhesion is at once restored.
The Lycosa is a stay-at-home. She never goes out except to snap up some
game passing within her hunting-domains, near the burrow. At the end of
August, however, it is not unusual to meet her roaming about, dragging
her wallet behind her. Her hesitations make one think that she is
looking for her home, which she has left for the moment and has a
difficulty in finding.
Why these rambles? There are two reasons: first the pairing and then the
making of the pill. There is a lack of space in the burrow, which
provides only room enough for the Spider engaged in long contemplation.
Now the preparations for the egg-bag require an extensive flooring, a
supporting framework about the size of one's hand, as my caged prisoner
has shown us. The Lycosa has not so much space at her disposal, in her
well; hence the necessity for coming out and working at her wallet in the
open air, doubtless in the quiet hours of the night.
The meeting with the male seems likewise to demand an excursion. Running
the risk of being eaten alive, will he venture to plunge into his lady's
cave, into a lair whence flight would be impossible? It is very
doubtful. Prudence demands that matters should take place outside. Here
at least there is some chance of beating a hasty retreat which will
enable the rash swain to escape the attacks of his horrible bride.
The interview in the open air lessens the danger without removing it
entirely. We had proof of this when we caught the Lycosa in the act of
devouring her lover aboveground, in a part of the enclosure which had
been broken for planting and which was therefore not suitable for the
Spider's establishment. The burrow must have been some way off; and the
meeting of the pair took place at the very spot of the tragic
catastrophe. Although he had a clear road, the male was not quick enough
in getting away and was duly eaten.
After this cannibal orgy, does the Lycosa go back home? Perhaps not, for
a while. Besides, she would have to go out a second time, to manufacture
her pill on a level space of sufficient extent.
When the work is done, some of them emancipate themselves, think they
will have a look at the country before retiring for good and all. It is
these whom we sometimes meet wandering aimlessly and dragging their bag
behind them. Sooner or later, however, the vagrants return home; and the
month of August is not over before a straw rustled in any burrow will
bring the mother up, with her wallet slung behind her. I am able to
procure as many as I want and, with them, to indulge in certain
experiments of the highest interest.
It is a sight worth seeing, that of the Lycosa dragging her treasure
after her, never leaving it, day or night, sleeping or waking, and
defending it with a courage that strikes the beholder with awe. If I try
to take the bag from her, she presses it to her breast in despair, hangs
on to my pincers, bites them with her poison-fangs. I can hear the
daggers grating on the steel. No, she would not allow herself to be
robbed of the wallet with impunity, if my fingers were not supplied with
an implement.
By dint of pulling and shaking the pill with the forceps, I take it from
the Lycosa, who protests furiously. I fling her in exchange a pill taken
from another Lycosa. It is at once seized in the fangs, embraced by the
legs and hung on to the spinneret. Her own or another's: it is all one
to the Spider, who walks away proudly with the alien wallet. This was to
be expected, in view of the similarity of the pills exchanged.
A test of another kind, with a second subject, renders the mistake more
striking. I substitute, in the place of the lawful bag which I have
removed, the work of the Silky Epeira. The colour and softness of the
material are the same in both cases; but the shape is quite different.
The stolen object is a globe; the object presented in exchange is an
elliptical conoid studded with angular projections along the edge of the
base. The Spider takes no account of this dissimilarity. She promptly
glues the queer bag to her spinnerets and is as pleased as though she
were in possession of her real pill. My experimental villainies have no
other consequences beyond an ephemeral carting. When hatching-time
arrives, early in the case of the Lycosa, late in that of the Epeira, the
gulled Spider abandons the strange bag and pays it no further attention.
Let us penetrate yet deeper into the wallet-bearer's stupidity. After
depriving the Lycosa of her eggs, I throw her a ball of cork, roughly
polished with a file and of the same size as the stolen pill. She
accepts the corky substance, so different from the silk purse, without
the least demur. One would have thought that she would recognize her
mistake with those eight eyes of hers, which gleam like precious stones.
The silly creature pays no attention. Lovingly she embraces the cork
ball, fondles it with her palpi, fastens it to her spinnerets and
thenceforth drags it after her as though she were dragging her own bag.
Let us give another the choice between the imitation and the real. The
rightful pill and the cork ball are placed together on the floor of the
jar. Will the Spider be able to know the one that belongs to her? The
fool is incapable of doing so. She makes a wild rush and seizes
haphazard at one time her property, at another my sham product. Whatever
is first touched becomes a good capture and is forthwith hung up.
If I increase the number of cork balls, if I put in four or five of them,
with the real pill among them, it is seldom that the Lycosa recovers her
own property. Attempts at enquiry, attempts at selection there are none.
Whatever she snaps up at random she sticks to, be it good or bad. As
there are more of the sham pills of cork, these are the most often seized
by the Spider.
This obtuseness baffles me. Can the animal be deceived by the soft
contact of the cork? I replace the cork balls by pellets of cotton or
paper, kept in their round shape with a few bands of thread. Both are
very readily accepted instead of the real bag that has been removed.
Can the illusion be due to the colouring, which is light in the cork and
not unlike the tint of the silk globe when soiled with a little earth,
while it is white in the paper and the cotton, when it is identical with
that of the original pill? I give the Lycosa, in exchange for her work,
a pellet of silk thread, chosen of a fine red, the brightest of all
colours. The uncommon pill is as readily accepted and as jealously
guarded as the others.
We will leave the wallet-bearer alone; we know all that we want to know
about her poverty of intellect. Let us wait for the hatching, which
takes place in the first fortnight in September. As they come out of the
pill, the youngsters, to the number of about a couple of hundred, clamber
on the Spider's back and there sit motionless, jammed close together,
forming a sort of bark of mingled legs and paunches. The mother is
unrecognizable under this live mantilla. When the hatching is over, the
wallet is loosened from the spinnerets and cast aside as a worthless rag.
The little ones are very good: none stirs none tries to get more room for
himself at his neighbours' expense. What are they doing there, so
quietly? They allow themselves to be carted about, like the young of the
Opossum. Whether she sit in long meditation at the bottom of her den, or
come to the orifice, in mild weather, to bask in the sun, the Lycosa
never throws off her great-coat of swarming youngsters until the fine
season comes.
If, in the middle of winter, in January or February, I happen, out in the
fields, to ransack the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and frost
have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastion at the entrance,
I always find her at home, still full of vigour, still carrying her
family. This vehicular upbringing lasts five or six months at least,
without interruption. The celebrated American carrier, the Opossum, who
emancipates her offspring after a few weeks' carting, cuts a poor figure
beside the Lycosa.
What do the little ones eat, on the maternal spine? Nothing, so far as I
know. I do not see them grow larger. I find them, at the tardy period
of their emancipation, just as they were when they left the bag.
During the bad season, the mother herself is extremely abstemious. At
long intervals, she accepts, in my jars, a belated Locust, whom I have
captured, for her benefit, in the sunnier nooks. In order to keep
herself in condition, as when she is dug up in the course of my winter
excavations, she must therefore sometimes break her fast and come out in
search of prey, without, of course, discarding her live mantilla.
The expedition has its dangers. The youngsters may be brushed off by a
blade of grass. What becomes of them when they have a fall? Does the
mother give them a thought? Does she come to their assistance and help
them to regain their place on her back? Not at all. The affection of a
Spider's heart, divided among some hundreds, can spare but a very feeble
portion to each. The Lycosa hardly troubles, whether one youngster fall
from his place, or six, or all of them. She waits impassively for the
victims of the mishap to get out of their own difficulty, which they do,
for that matter, and very nimbly.
I sweep the whole family from the back of one of my boarders with a hair-
pencil. Not a sign of emotion, not an attempt at search on the part of
the denuded one. After trotting about a little on the sand, the
dislodged youngsters find, these here, those there, one or other of the
mother's legs, spread wide in a circle. By means of these
climbing-poles, they swarm to the top and soon the dorsal group resumes
its original form. Not one of the lot is missing. The Lycosa's sons
know their trade as acrobats to perfection: the mother need not trouble
her head about their fall.
With a sweep of the pencil, I make the family of one Spider fall around
another laden with her own family. The dislodged ones nimbly scramble up
the legs and climb on the back of their new mother, who kindly allows
them to behave as though they belonged to her. There is no room on the
abdomen, the regulation resting-place, which is already occupied by the
real sons. The invaders thereupon encamp on the front part, beset the
thorax and change the carrier into a horrible pin-cushion that no longer
bears the least resemblance to a Spider form. Meanwhile, the sufferer
raises no sort of protest against this access of family. She placidly
accepts them all and walks them all about.
The youngsters, on their side, are unable to distinguish between what is
permitted and forbidden. Remarkable acrobats that they are, they climb
on the first Spider that comes along, even when of a different species,
provided that she be of a fair size. I place them in the presence of a
big Epeira marked with a white cross on a pale-orange ground (_Epeira
pallida_, OLIV.). The little ones, as soon as they are dislodged from
the back of the Lycosa their mother, clamber up the stranger without
hesitation.
Intolerant of these familiarities, the Spider shakes the leg encroached
upon and flings the intruders to a distance. The assault is doggedly
resumed, to such good purpose that a dozen succeed in hoisting themselves
to the top. The Epeira, who is not accustomed to the tickling of such a
load, turns over on her back and rolls on the ground in the manner of a
donkey when his hide is itching. Some are lamed, some are even crushed.
This does not deter the others, who repeat the escalade as soon as the
Epeira is on her legs again. Then come more somersaults, more rollings
on the back, until the giddy swarm are all discomfited and leave the
Spider in peace.
CHAPTER IV: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE BURROW
Michelet {23} has told us how, as a printer's apprentice in a cellar, he
established amicable relations with a Spider. At a certain hour of the
day, a ray of sunlight would glint through the window of the gloomy
workshop and light up the little compositor's case. Then his
eight-legged neighbour would come down from her web and take her share of
the sunshine on the edge of the case. The boy did not interfere with
her; he welcomed the trusting visitor as a friend and as a pleasant
diversion from the long monotony. When we lack the society of our fellow-
men, we take refuge in that of animals, without always losing by the
change.
I do not, thank God, suffer from the melancholy of a cellar: my solitude
is gay with light and verdure; I attend, whenever I please, the fields'
high festival, the Thrushes' concert, the Crickets' symphony; and yet my
friendly commerce with the Spider is marked by an even greater devotion
than the young typesetter's. I admit her to the intimacy of my study, I
make room for her among my books, I set her in the sun on my
window-ledge, I visit her assiduously at her home, in the country. The
object of our relations is not to create a means of escape from the petty
worries of life, pin-pricks whereof I have my share like other men, a
very large share, indeed; I propose to submit to the Spider a host of
questions whereto, at times, she condescends to reply.
To what fair problems does not the habit of frequenting her give rise! To
set them forth worthily, the marvellous art which the little printer was
to acquire were not too much. One needs the pen of a Michelet; and I
have but a rough, blunt pencil. Let us try, nevertheless: even when
poorly clad, truth is still beautiful.
I will therefore once more take up the story of the Spider's instinct, a
story of which the preceding chapters have given but a very rough idea.
Since I wrote those earlier essays, my field of observation has been
greatly extended. My notes have been enriched by new and most remarkable
facts. It is right that I should employ them for the purpose of a more
detailed biography.
The exigencies of order and clearness expose me, it is true, to
occasional repetitions. This is inevitable when one has to marshal in an
harmonious whole a thousand items culled from day to day, often
unexpectedly, and bearing no relation one to the other. The observer is
not master of his time; opportunity leads him and by unsuspected ways. A
certain question suggested by an earlier fact finds no reply until many
years after. Its scope, moreover, is amplified and completed with views
collected on the road. In a work, therefore, of this fragmentary
character, repetitions, necessary for the due co-ordination of ideas, are
inevitable. I shall be as sparing of them as I can.
Let us once more introduce our old friends the Epeira and the Lycosa, who
are the most important Spiders in my district. The Narbonne Lycosa, or
Black-bellied Tarantula, chooses her domicile in the waste, pebbly lands
beloved of the thyme. Her dwelling, a fortress rather than a villa, is a
burrow about nine inches deep and as wide as the neck of a claret-bottle.
The direction is perpendicular, in so far as obstacles, frequent in a
soil of this kind, permit. A bit of gravel can be extracted and hoisted
outside; but a flint is an immovable boulder which the Spider avoids by
giving a bend to her gallery. If more such are met with, the residence
becomes a winding cave, with stone vaults, with lobbies communicating by
means of sharp passages.
This lack of plan has no attendant drawbacks, so well does the owner,
from long habit, know every corner and storey of her mansion. If any
interesting buzz occur overhead, the Lycosa climbs up from her rugged
manor with the same speed as from a vertical shaft. Perhaps she even
finds the windings and turnings an advantage, when she has to drag into
her den a prey that happens to defend itself.
As a rule, the end of the burrow widens into a side-chamber, a lounge or
resting-place where the Spider meditates at length and is content to lead
a life of quiet when her belly is full.
A silk coating, but a scanty one, for the Lycosa has not the wealth of
silk possessed by the Weaving Spiders, lines the walls of the tube and
keeps the loose earth from falling. This plaster, which cements the
incohesive and smooths the rugged parts, is reserved more particularly
for the top of the gallery, near the mouth. Here, in the daytime, if
things be peaceful all around, the Lycosa stations herself, either to
enjoy the warmth of the sun, her great delight, or to lie in wait for
game. The threads of the silk lining afford a firm hold to the claws on
every side, whether the object be to sit motionless for hours, revelling
in the light and heat, or to pounce upon the passing prey.
Around the orifice of the burrow rises, to a greater or lesser height, a
circular parapet, formed of tiny pebbles, twigs and straps borrowed from
the dry leaves of the neighbouring grasses, all more or less dexterously
tied together and cemented with silk. This work of rustic architecture
is never missing, even though it be no more than a mere pad.
When she reaches maturity and is once settled, the Lycosa becomes
eminently domesticated. I have been living in close communion with her
for the last three years. I have installed her in large earthen pans on
the window-sills of my study and I have her daily under my eyes. Well,
it is very rarely that I happen on her outside, a few inches from her
hole, back to which she bolts at the least alarm.
We may take it, then, that, when not in captivity, the Lycosa does not go
far afield to gather the wherewithal to build her parapet and that she
makes shift with what she finds upon her threshold. In these conditions,
the building-stones are soon exhausted and the masonry ceases for lack of
materials.
The wish came over me to see what dimensions the circular edifice would
assume, if the Spider were given an unlimited supply. With captives to
whom I myself act as purveyor the thing is easy enough. Were it only
with a view to helping whoso may one day care to continue these relations
with the big Spider of the waste-lands, let me describe how my subjects
are housed.
A good-sized earthenware pan, some nine inches deep, is filled with a
red, clayey earth, rich in pebbles, similar, in short, to that of the
places haunted by the Lycosa. Properly moistened into a paste, the
artificial soil is heaped, layer by layer, around a central reed, of a
bore equal to that of the animal's natural burrow. When the receptacle
is filled to the top, I withdraw the reed, which leaves a yawning,
perpendicular shaft. I thus obtain the abode which shall replace that of
the fields.
To find the hermit to inhabit it is merely the matter of a walk in the
neighbourhood. When removed from her own dwelling, which is turned topsy-
turvy by my trowel, and placed in possession of the den produced by my
art, the Lycosa at once disappears into that den. She does not come out
again, seeks nothing better elsewhere. A large wire-gauze cover rests on
the soil in the pan and prevents escape.
In any case, the watch, in this respect, makes no demands upon my
diligence. The prisoner is satisfied with her new abode and manifests no
regret for her natural burrow. There is no attempt at flight on her
part. Let me not omit to add that each pan must receive not more than
one inhabitant. The Lycosa is very intolerant. To her, a neighbour is
fair game, to be eaten without scruple when one has might on one's side.
Time was when, unaware of this fierce intolerance, which is more savage
still at breeding-time, I saw hideous orgies perpetrated in my
overstocked cages. I shall have occasion to describe those tragedies
later.
Let us meanwhile consider the isolated Lycosae. They do not touch up the
dwelling which I have moulded for them with a bit of reed; at most, now
and again, perhaps with the object of forming a lounge or bedroom at the
bottom, they fling out a few loads of rubbish. But all, little by
little, build the kerb that is to edge the mouth.
I have given them plenty of first-rate materials, far superior to those
which they use when left to their own resources. These consist, first,
for the foundations, of little smooth stones, some of which are as large
as an almond. With this road-metal are mingled short strips of raphia,
or palm-fibre, flexible ribbons, easily bent. These stand for the
Spider's usual basket-work, consisting of slender stalks and dry blades
of grass. Lastly, by way of an unprecedented treasure, never yet
employed by a Lycosa, I place at my captives' disposal some thick threads
of wool, cut into inch lengths.
As I wish, at the same time, to find out whether my animals, with the
magnificent lenses of their eyes, are able to distinguish colours and
prefer one colour to another, I mix up bits of wool of different hues:
there are red, green, white and yellow pieces. If the Spider have any
preference, she can choose where she pleases.
The Lycosa always works at night, a regrettable circumstance, which does
not allow me to follow the worker's methods. I see the result; and that
is all. Were I to visit the building-yard by the light of a lantern, I
should be no wiser. The animal, which is very shy, would at once dive
into her lair; and I should have lost my sleep for nothing. Furthermore,
she is not a very diligent labourer; she likes to take her time. Two or
three bits of wool or raphia placed in position represent a whole night's
work. And to this slowness we must add long spells of utter idleness.
Two months pass; and the result of my liberality surpasses my
expectations. Possessing more windfalls than they know what to do with,
all picked up in their immediate neighbourhood, my Lycosae have built
themselves donjon-keeps the like of which their race has not yet known.
Around the orifice, on a slightly sloping bank, small, flat, smooth
stones have been laid to form a broken, flagged pavement. The larger
stones, which are Cyclopean blocks compared with the size of the animal
that has shifted them, are employed as abundantly as the others.
On this rockwork stands the donjon. It is an interlacing of raphia and
bits of wool, picked up at random, without distinction of shade. Red and
white, green and yellow are mixed without any attempt at order. The
Lycosa is indifferent to the joys of colour.
The ultimate result is a sort of muff, a couple of inches high. Bands of
silk, supplied by the spinnerets, unite the pieces, so that the whole
resembles a coarse fabric. Without being absolutely faultless, for there
are always awkward pieces on the outside, which the worker could not
handle, the gaudy building is not devoid of merit. The bird lining its
nest would do no better. Whoso sees the curious, many-coloured
productions in my pans takes them for an outcome of my industry,
contrived with a view to some experimental mischief; and his surprise is
great when I confess who the real author is. No one would ever believe
the Spider capable of constructing such a monument.
It goes without saying that, in a state of liberty, on our barren waste-
lands, the Lycosa does not indulge in such sumptuous architecture. I
have given the reason: she is too great a stay-at-home to go in search of
materials and she makes use of the limited resources which she finds
around her. Bits of earth, small chips of stone, a few twigs, a few
withered grasses: that is all, or nearly all. Wherefore the work is
generally quite modest and reduced to a parapet that hardly attracts
attention.
My captives teach us that, when materials are plentiful, especially
textile materials that remove all fears of landslip, the Lycosa delights
in tall turrets. She understands the art of donjon-building and puts it
into practice as often as she possesses the means.
This art is akin to another, from which it is apparently derived. If the
sun be fierce or if rain threaten, the Lycosa closes the entrance to her
dwelling with a silken trellis-work, wherein she embeds different
matters, often the remnants of victims which she has devoured. The
ancient Gael nailed the heads of his vanquished enemies to the door of
his hut. In the same way, the fierce Spider sticks the skulls of her
prey into the lid of her cave. These lumps look very well on the ogre's
roof; but we must be careful not to mistake them for warlike trophies.
The animal knows nothing of our barbarous bravado. Everything at the
threshold of the burrow is used indiscriminately: fragments of Locust,
vegetable remains and especially particles of earth. A Dragon-fly's head
baked by the sun is as good as a bit of gravel and no better.
And so, with silk and all sorts of tiny materials, the Lycosa builds a
lidded cap to the entrance of her home. I am not well acquainted with
the reasons that prompt her to barricade herself indoors, particularly as
the seclusion is only temporary and varies greatly in duration. I obtain
precise details from a tribe of Lycosae wherewith the enclosure, as will
be seen later, happens to be thronged in consequence of my investigations
into the dispersal of the family.
At the time of the tropical August heat, I see my Lycosae, now this
batch, now that, building, at the entrance to the burrow, a convex
ceiling, which is difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. Can
it be to protect themselves from the too-vivid light? This is doubtful;
for, a few days later, though the power of the sun remain the same, the
roof is broken open and the Spider reappears at her door, where she
revels in the torrid heat of the dog-days.
Later, when October comes, if it be rainy weather, she retires once more
under a roof, as though she were guarding herself against the damp. Let
us not be too positive of anything, however: often, when it is raining
hard, the Spider bursts her ceiling and leaves her house open to the
skies.
Perhaps the lid is only put on for serious domestic events, notably for
the laying. I do, in fact, perceive young Lycosae who shut themselves in
before they have attained the dignity of motherhood and who reappear,
some time later, with the bag containing the eggs hung to their stern.
The inference that they close the door with the object of securing
greater quiet while spinning the maternal cocoon would not be in keeping
with the unconcern displayed by the majority. I find some who lay their
eggs in an open burrow; I come upon some who weave their cocoon and cram
it with eggs in the open air, before they even own a residence. In
short, I do not succeed in fathoming the reasons that cause the burrow to
be closed, no matter what the weather, hot or cold, wet or dry.
The fact remains that the lid is broken and repaired repeatedly,
sometimes on the same day. In spite of the earthy casing, the silk woof
gives it the requisite pliancy to cleave when pushed by the anchorite and
to rip open without falling into ruins. Swept back to the circumference
of the mouth and increased by the wreckage of further ceilings, it
becomes a parapet, which the Lycosa raises by degrees in her long moments
of leisure. The bastion which surmounts the burrow, therefore, takes its
origin from the temporary lid. The turret derives from the split
ceiling.
What is the purpose of this turret? My pans will tell us that. An
enthusiastic votary of the chase, so long as she is not permanently
fixed, the Lycosa, once she has set up house, prefers to lie in ambush
and wait for the quarry. Every day, when the heat is greatest, I see my
captives come up slowly from under ground and lean upon the battlements
of their woolly castle-keep. They are then really magnificent in their
stately gravity. With their swelling belly contained within the
aperture, their head outside, their glassy eyes staring, their legs
gathered for a spring, for hours and hours they wait, motionless, bathing
voluptuously in the sun.
Should a tit-bit to her liking happen to pass, forthwith the watcher
darts from her tall tower, swift as an arrow from the bow. With a dagger-
thrust in the neck, she stabs the jugular of the Locust, Dragon-fly or
other prey whereof I am the purveyor; and she as quickly scales the
donjon and retires with her capture. The performance is a wonderful
exhibition of skill and speed.
Very seldom is a quarry missed, provided that it pass at a convenient
distance, within the range of the huntress' bound. But, if the prey be
at some distance, for instance on the wire of the cage, the Lycosa takes
no notice of it. Scorning to go in pursuit, she allows it to roam at
will. She never strikes except when sure of her stroke. She achieves
this by means of her tower. Hiding behind the wall, she sees the
stranger advancing, keeps her eyes on him and suddenly pounces when he
comes within reach. These abrupt tactics make the thing a certainty.
Though he were winged and swift of flight, the unwary one who approaches
the ambush is lost.
This presumes, it is true, an exemplary patience on the Lycosa's part;
for the burrow has naught that can serve to entice victims. At best, the
ledge provided by the turret may, at rare intervals, tempt some weary
wayfarer to use it as a resting-place. But, if the quarry do not come to-
day, it is sure to come to-morrow, the next day, or later, for the
Locusts hop innumerable in the waste-land, nor are they always able to
regulate their leaps. Some day or other, chance is bound to bring one of
them within the purlieus of the burrow. This is the moment to spring
upon the pilgrim from the ramparts. Until then, we maintain a stoical
vigilance. We shall dine when we can; but we shall end by dining.
The Lycosa, therefore, well aware of these lingering eventualities, waits
and is not unduly distressed by a prolonged abstinence. She has an
accommodating stomach, which is satisfied to be gorged to-day and to
remain empty afterwards for goodness knows how long. I have sometimes
neglected my catering-duties for weeks at a time; and my boarders have
been none the worse for it. After a more or less protracted fast, they
do not pine away, but are smitten with a wolf-like hunger. All these
ravenous eaters are alike: they guzzle to excess to-day, in anticipation
of to-morrow's dearth.
In her youth, before she has a burrow, the Lycosa earns her living in
another manner. Clad in grey like her elders, but without the
black-velvet apron which she receives on attaining the marriageable age,
she roams among the scrubby grass. This is true hunting. Should a
suitable quarry heave in sight, the Spider pursues it, drives it from its
shelters, follows it hot-foot. The fugitive gains the heights, makes as
though to fly away. He has not the time. With an upward leap, the
Lycosa grabs him before he can rise.
I am charmed with the agility wherewith my yearling boarders seize the
Flies which I provide for them. In vain does the Fly take refuge a
couple of inches up, on some blade of grass. With a sudden spring into
the air, the Spider pounces on the prey. No Cat is quicker in catching
her Mouse.
But these are the feats of youth not handicapped by obesity. Later, when
a heavy paunch, dilated with eggs and silk, has to be trailed along,
those gymnastic performances become impracticable. The Lycosa then digs
herself a settled abode, a hunting-box, and sits in her watch-tower, on
the look-out for game.
When and how is the burrow obtained wherein the Lycosa, once a vagrant,
now a stay-at-home, is to spend the remainder of her long life? We are
in autumn, the weather is already turning cool. This is how the Field
Cricket sets to work: as long as the days are fine and the nights not too
cold, the future chorister of spring rambles over the fallows, careless
of a local habitation. At critical moments, the cover of a dead leaf
provides him with a temporary shelter. In the end, the burrow, the
permanent dwelling, is dug as the inclement season draws nigh.
The Lycosa shares the Cricket's views: like him, she finds a thousand
pleasures in the vagabond life. With September comes the nuptial badge,
the black-velvet bib. The Spiders meet at night, by the soft moonlight:
they romp together, they eat the beloved shortly after the wedding; by
day, they scour the country, they track the game on the short-pile,
grassy carpet, they take their fill of the joys of the sun. That is much
better than solitary meditation at the bottom of a well. And so it is
not rare to see young mothers dragging their bag of eggs, or even already
carrying their family, and as yet without a home.
In October, it is time to settle down. We then, in fact, find two sorts
of burrows, which differ in diameter. The larger, bottle-neck burrows
belong to the old matrons, who have owned their house for two years at
least. The smaller, of the width of a thick lead-pencil, contain the
young mothers, born that year. By dint of long and leisurely
alterations, the novice's earths will increase in depth as well as in
diameter and become roomy abodes, similar to those of the grandmothers.
In both, we find the owner and her family, the latter sometimes already
hatched and sometimes still enclosed in the satin wallet.
Seeing no digging-tools, such as the excavation of the dwelling seemed to
me to require, I wondered whether the Lycosa might not avail herself of
some chance gallery, the work of the Cicada or the Earth-worm. This
ready-made tunnel, thought I, must shorten the labours of the Spider, who
appears to be so badly off for tools; she would only have to enlarge it
and put it in order. I was wrong: the burrow is excavated, from start to
finish, by her unaided labour.
Then where are the digging-implements? We think of the legs, of the
claws. We think of them, but reflection tells us that tools such as
these would not do: they are too long and too difficult to wield in a
confined space. What is required is the miner's short-handled pick,
wherewith to drive hard, to insert, to lever and to extract; what is
required is the sharp point that enters the earth and crumbles it into
fragments. There remain the Lycosa's fangs, delicate weapons which we at
first hesitate to associate with such work, so illogical does it seem to
dig a pit with surgeon's scalpels.
The fangs are a pair of sharp, curved points, which, when at rest, crook
like a finger and take shelter between two strong pillars. The Cat
sheathes her claws under the velvet of the paw, to preserve their edge
and sharpness. In the same way, the Lycosa protects her poisoned daggers
by folding them within the case of two powerful columns, which come plumb
on the surface and contain the muscles that work them.
Well, this surgical outfit, intended for stabbing the jugular artery of
the prey, suddenly becomes a pick-axe and does rough navvy's work. To
witness the underground digging is impossible; but we can, at least, with
the exercise of a little patience, see the rubbish carted away. If I
watch my captives, without tiring, at a very early hour--for the work
takes place mostly at night and at long intervals--in the end I catch
them coming up with a load. Contrary to what I expected, the legs take
no part in the carting. It is the mouth that acts as the barrow. A tiny
ball of earth is held between the fangs and is supported by the palpi, or
feelers, which are little arms employed in the service of the
mouth-parts. The Lycosa descends cautiously from her turret, goes to
some distance to get rid of her burden and quickly dives down again to
bring up more.
We have seen enough: we know that the Lycosa's fangs, those lethal
weapons, are not afraid to bite into clay and gravel. They knead the
excavated rubbish into pellets, take up the mass of earth and carry it
outside. The rest follows naturally; it is the fangs that dig, delve and
extract. How finely-tempered they must be, not to be blunted by this
well-sinker's work and to do duty presently in the surgical operation of
stabbing the neck!
I have said that the repairs and extensions of the burrow are made at
long intervals. From time to time, the circular parapet receives
additions and becomes a little higher; less frequently still, the
dwelling is enlarged and deepened. As a rule, the mansion remains as it
was for a whole season. Towards the end of winter, in March more than at
any other period, the Lycosa seems to wish to give herself a little more
space. This is the moment to subject her to certain tests.
We know that the Field Cricket, when removed from his burrow and caged
under conditions that would allow him to dig himself a new home should
the fit seize him, prefers to tramp from one casual shelter to another,
or rather abandons every idea of creating a permanent residence. There
is a short season whereat the instinct for building a subterranean
gallery is imperatively aroused. When this season is past, the
excavating artist, if accidentally deprived of his abode, becomes a
wandering Bohemian, careless of a lodging. He has forgotten his talents
and he sleeps out.
That the bird, the nest-builder, should neglect its art when it has no
brood to care for is perfectly logical: it builds for its family, not for
itself. But what shall we say of the Cricket, who is exposed to a
thousand mishaps when away from home? The protection of a roof would be
of great use to him; and the giddy-pate does not give it a thought,
though he is very strong and more capable than ever of digging with his
powerful jaws.
What reason can we allege for this neglect? None, unless it be that the
season of strenuous burrowing is past. The instincts have a calendar of
their own. At the given hour, suddenly they awaken; as suddenly,
afterwards, they fall asleep. The ingenious become incompetent when the
prescribed period is ended.
On a subject of this kind, we can consult the Spider of the waste-lands.
I catch an old Lycosa in the fields and house her, that same day, under
wire, in a burrow where I have prepared a soil to her liking. If, by my
contrivances and with a bit of reed, I have previously moulded a burrow
roughly representing the one from which I took her, the Spider enters it
forthwith and seems pleased with her new residence. The product of my
art is accepted as her lawful property and undergoes hardly any
alterations. In course of time, a bastion is erected around the orifice;
the top of the gallery is cemented with silk; and that is all. In this
establishment of my building, the animal's behaviour remains what it
would be under natural conditions.
But place the Lycosa on the surface of the ground, without first shaping
a burrow. What will the homeless Spider do? Dig herself a dwelling, one
would think. She has the strength to do so; she is in the prime of life.
Besides, the soil is similar to that whence I ousted her and suits the
operation perfectly. We therefore expect to see the Spider settled
before long in a shaft of her own construction.
We are disappointed. Weeks pass and not an effort is made, not one.
Demoralized by the absence of an ambush, the Lycosa hardly vouchsafes a
glance at the game which I serve up. The Crickets pass within her reach
in vain; most often she scorns them. She slowly wastes away with fasting
and boredom. At length, she dies.
Take up your miner's trade again, poor fool! Make yourself a home, since
you know how to, and life will be sweet to you for many a long day yet:
the weather is fine and victuals plentiful. Dig, delve, go underground,
where safety lies. Like an idiot, you refrain; and you perish. Why?
Because the craft which you were wont to ply is forgotten; because the
days of patient digging are past and your poor brain is unable to work
back. To do a second time what has been done already is beyond your wit.
For all your meditative air, you cannot solve the problem of how to
reconstruct that which is vanished and gone.
Let us now see what we can do with younger Lycosae, who are at the
burrowing-stage. I dig out five or six at the end of February. They are
half the size of the old ones; their burrows are equal in diameter to my
little finger. Rubbish quite fresh-spread around the pit bears witness
to the recent date of the excavations.
Relegated to their wire cages, these young Lycosae behave differently
according as the soil placed at their disposal is or is not already
provided with a burrow made by me. A burrow is hardly the word: I give
them but the nucleus of a shaft, about an inch deep, to lure them on.
When in possession of this rudimentary lair, the Spider does not hesitate
to pursue the work which I have interrupted in the fields. At night, she
digs with a will. I can see this by the heap of rubbish flung aside. She
at last obtains a house to suit her, a house surmounted by the usual
turret.
The others, on the contrary, those Spiders for whom the thrust of my
pencil has not contrived an entrance-hall representing, to a certain
extent, the natural gallery whence I dislodged them, absolutely refuse to
work; and they die, notwithstanding the abundance of provisions.
The first pursue the season's task. They were digging when I caught
them; and, carried away by the enthusiasm of their activity, they go on
digging inside my cages. Taken in by my decoy-shaft, they deepen the
imprint of the pencil as though they were deepening their real vestibule.
They do not begin their labours over again; they continue them.
The second, not having this inducement, this semblance of a burrow
mistaken for their own work, forsake the idea of digging and allow
themselves to die, because they would have to travel back along the chain
of actions and to resume the pick-strokes of the start. To begin all
over again requires reflection, a quality wherewith they are not endowed.
To the insect--and we have seen this in many earlier cases--what is done
is done and cannot be taken up again. The hands of a watch do not move
backwards. The insect behaves in much the same way. Its activity urges
it in one direction, ever forwards, without allowing it to retrace its
steps, even when an accident makes this necessary.
What the Mason-bees and the others taught us erewhile the Lycosa now
confirms in her manner. Incapable of taking fresh pains to build herself
a second dwelling, when the first is done for, she will go on the tramp,
she will break into a neighbour's house, she will run the risk of being
eaten should she not prove the stronger, but she will never think of
making herself a home by starting afresh.
What a strange intellect is that of the animal, a mixture of mechanical
routine and subtle brain-power! Does it contain gleams that contrive,
wishes that pursue a definite object? Following in the wake of so many
others, the Lycosa warrants us in entertaining a doubt.
CHAPTER V: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE FAMILY
For three weeks and more, the Lycosa trails the bag of eggs hanging to
her spinnerets. The reader will remember the experiments described in
the third chapter of this volume, particularly those with the cork ball
and the thread pellet which the Spider so foolishly accepts in exchange
for the real pill. Well, this exceedingly dull-witted mother, satisfied
with aught that knocks against her heels, is about to make us wonder at
her devotion.
Whether she come up from her shaft to lean upon the kerb and bask in the
sun, whether she suddenly retire underground in the face of danger, or
whether she be roaming the country before settling down, never does she
let go her precious bag, that very cumbrous burden in walking, climbing
or leaping. If, by some accident, it become detached from the fastening
to which it is hung, she flings herself madly on her treasure and
lovingly embraces it, ready to bite whoso would take it from her. I
myself am sometimes the thief. I then hear the points of the
poison-fangs grinding against the steel of my pincers, which tug in one
direction while the Lycosa tugs in the other. But let us leave the
animal alone: with a quick touch of the spinnerets, the pill is restored
to its place; and the Spider strides off, still menacing.
Towards the end of summer, all the householders, old or young, whether in
captivity on the window-sill or at liberty in the paths of the enclosure,
supply me daily with the following improving sight. In the morning, as
soon as the sun is hot and beats upon their burrow, the anchorites come
up from the bottom with their bag and station themselves at the opening.
Long siestas on the threshold in the sun are the order of the day
throughout the fine season; but, at the present time, the position
adopted is a different one. Formerly, the Lycosa came out into the sun
for her own sake. Leaning on the parapet, she had the front half of her
body outside the pit and the hinder half inside.
The eyes took their fill of light; the belly remained in the dark. When
carrying her egg-bag, the Spider reverses the posture: the front is in
the pit, the rear outside. With her hind-legs she holds the white pill
bulging with germs lifted above the entrance; gently she turns and
returns it, so as to present every side to the life-giving rays. And
this goes on for half the day, so long as the temperature is high; and it
is repeated daily, with exquisite patience, during three or four weeks.
To hatch its eggs, the bird covers them with the quilt of its breast; it
strains them to the furnace of its heart. The Lycosa turns hers in front
of the hearth of hearths, she gives them the sun as an incubator.
In the early days of September, the young ones, who have been some time
hatched, are ready to come out. The pill rips open along the middle
fold. We read of the origin of this fold in an earlier chapter. {24}
Does the mother, feeling the brood quicken inside the satin wrapper,
herself break open the vessel at the opportune moment? It seems
probable. On the other hand, there may be a spontaneous bursting, such
as we shall see later in the Banded Epeira's balloon, a tough wallet
which opens a breach of its own accord, long after the mother has ceased
to exist.
The whole family emerges from the bag straightway. Then and there, the
youngsters climb to the mother's back. As for the empty bag, now a
worthless shred, it is flung out of the burrow; the Lycosa does not give
it a further thought. Huddled together, sometimes in two or three
layers, according to their number, the little ones cover the whole back
of the mother, who, for seven or eight months to come, will carry her
family night and day. Nowhere can we hope to see a more edifying
domestic picture than that of the Lycosa clothed in her young.
From time to time, I meet a little band of gipsies passing along the high-
road on their way to some neighbouring fair. The new-born babe mewls on
the mother's breast, in a hammock formed out of a kerchief. The last-
weaned is carried pick-a-back; a third toddles clinging to its mother's
skirts; others follow closely, the biggest in the rear, ferreting in the
blackberry-laden hedgerows. It is a magnificent spectacle of happy-go-
lucky fruitfulness. They go their way, penniless and rejoicing. The sun
is hot and the earth is fertile.
But how this picture pales before that of the Lycosa, that incomparable
gipsy whose brats are numbered by the hundred! And one and all of them,
from September to April, without a moment's respite, find room upon the
patient creature's back, where they are content to lead a tranquil life
and to be carted about.
The little ones are very good; none moves, none seeks a quarrel with his
neighbours. Clinging together, they form a continuous drapery, a shaggy
ulster under which the mother becomes unrecognizable. Is it an animal, a
fluff of wool, a cluster of small seeds fastened to one another? 'Tis
impossible to tell at the first glance.
The equilibrium of this living blanket is not so firm but that falls
often occur, especially when the mother climbs from indoors and comes to
the threshold to let the little ones take the sun. The least brush
against the gallery unseats a part of the family. The mishap is not
serious. The Hen, fidgeting about her Chicks, looks for the strays,
calls them, gathers them together. The Lycosa knows not these maternal
alarms. Impassively, she leaves those who drop off to manage their own
difficulty, which they do with wonderful quickness. Commend me to those
youngsters for getting up without whining, dusting themselves and
resuming their seat in the saddle! The unhorsed ones promptly find a leg
of the mother, the usual climbing-pole; they swarm up it as fast as they
can and recover their places on the bearer's back. The living bark of
animals is reconstructed in the twinkling of an eye.
To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extravagant. The Lycosa's
affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that of the plant, which is
unacquainted with any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest
and most delicate care upon its seeds. The animal, in many cases, knows
no other sense of motherhood. What cares the Lycosa for her brood! She
accepts another's as readily as her own; she is satisfied so long as her
back is burdened with a swarming crowd, whether it issue from her ovaries
or elsewhence. There is no question here of real maternal affection.
I have described elsewhere the prowess of the Copris {25} watching over
cells that are not her handiwork and do not contain her offspring. With
a zeal which even the additional labour laid upon her does not easily
weary, she removes the mildew from the alien dung-balls, which far exceed
the regular nests in number; she gently scrapes and polishes and repairs
them; she listens to them attentively and enquires by ear into each
nursling's progress. Her real collection could not receive greater care.
Her own family or another's: it is all one to her.
The Lycosa is equally indifferent. I take a hair-pencil and sweep the
living burden from one of my Spiders, making it fall close to another
covered with her little ones. The evicted youngsters scamper about, find
the new mother's legs outspread, nimbly clamber up these and mount on the
back of the obliging creature, who quietly lets them have their way.
They slip in among the others, or, when the layer is too thick, push to
the front and pass from the abdomen to the thorax and even to the head,
though leaving the region of the eyes uncovered. It does not do to blind
the bearer: the common safety demands that. They know this and respect
the lenses of the eyes, however populous the assembly be. The whole
animal is now covered with a swarming carpet of young, all except the
legs, which must preserve their freedom of action, and the under part of
the body, where contact with the ground is to be feared.
My pencil forces a third family upon the already overburdened Spider; and
this too is peacefully accepted. The youngsters huddle up closer, lie
one on top of the other in layers and room is found for all. The Lycosa
has lost the last semblance of an animal, has become a nameless bristling
thing that walks about. Falls are frequent and are followed by continual
climbings.
I perceive that I have reached the limits not of the bearer's good-will,
but of equilibrium. The Spider would adopt an indefinite further number
of foundlings, if the dimensions of her back afforded them a firm hold.
Let us be content with this. Let us restore each family to its mother,
drawing at random from the lot. There must necessarily be interchanges,
but that is of no importance: real children and adopted children are the
same thing in the Lycosa's eyes.
One would like to know if, apart from my artifices, in circumstances
where I do not interfere, the good-natured dry-nurse sometimes burdens
herself with a supplementary family; it would also be interesting to
learn what comes of this association of lawful offspring and strangers. I
have ample materials wherewith to obtain an answer to both questions. I
have housed in the same cage two elderly matrons laden with youngsters.
Each has her home as far removed from the other's as the size of the
common pan permits. The distance is nine inches or more. It is not
enough. Proximity soon kindles fierce jealousies between those
intolerant creatures, who are obliged to live far apart, so as to secure
adequate hunting-grounds.
One morning, I catch the two harridans fighting out their quarrel on the
floor. The loser is laid flat upon her back; the victress, belly to
belly with her adversary, clutches her with her legs and prevents her
from moving a limb. Both have their poison-fangs wide open, ready to
bite without yet daring, so mutually formidable are they. After a
certain period of waiting, during which the pair merely exchange threats,
the stronger of the two, the one on top, closes her lethal engine and
grinds the head of the prostrate foe. Then she calmly devours the
deceased by small mouthfuls.
Now what do the youngsters do, while their mother is being eaten? Easily
consoled, heedless of the atrocious scene, they climb on the conqueror's
back and quietly take their places among the lawful family. The ogress
raises no objection, accepts them as her own. She makes a meal off the
mother and adopts the orphans.
Let us add that, for many months yet, until the final emancipation comes,
she will carry them without drawing any distinction between them and her
own young. Henceforth, the two families, united in so tragic a fashion,
will form but one. We see how greatly out of place it would be to speak,
in this connection, of mother-love and its fond manifestations.
Does the Lycosa at least feed the younglings who, for seven months, swarm
upon her back? Does she invite them to the banquet when she has secured
a prize? I thought so at first; and, anxious to assist at the family
repast, I devoted special attention to watching the mothers eat. As a
rule, the prey is consumed out of sight, in the burrow; but sometimes
also a meal is taken on the threshold, in the open air. Besides, it is
easy to rear the Lycosa and her family in a wire-gauze cage, with a layer
of earth wherein the captive will never dream of sinking a well, such
work being out of season. Everything then happens in the open.
Well, while the mother munches, chews, expresses the juices and swallows,
the youngsters do not budge from their camping-ground on her back. Not
one quits its place nor gives a sign of wishing to slip down and join in
the meal. Nor does the mother extend an invitation to them to come and
recruit themselves, nor put any broken victuals aside for them. She
feeds and the others look on, or rather remain indifferent to what is
happening. Their perfect quiet during the Lycosa's feast points to the
posession of a stomach that knows no cravings.
Then with what are they sustained, during their seven months' upbringing
on the mother's back? One conceives a notion of exudations supplied by
the bearer's body, in which case the young would feed on their mother,
after the manner of parasitic vermin, and gradually drain her strength.
We must abandon this notion. Never are they seen to put their mouths to
the skin that should be a sort of teat to them. On the other hand, the
Lycosa, far from being exhausted and shrivelling, keeps perfectly well
and plump. She has the same pot-belly when she finishes rearing her
young as when she began. She has not lost weight: far from it; on the
contrary, she has put on flesh: she has gained the wherewithal to beget a
new family next summer, one as numerous as to-day's.
Once more, with what do the little ones keep up their strength? We do
not like to suggest reserves supplied by the egg as rectifying the
beastie's expenditure of vital force, especially when we consider that
those reserves, themselves so close to nothing, must be economized in
view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of which a
plentiful use will be made presently. There must be other powers at play
in the tiny animal's machinery.
Total abstinence from food could be understood, if it were accompanied by
inertia: immobility is not life. But the young Lycosae, although usually
quiet on their mother's back, are at all times ready for exercise and for
agile swarming. When they fall from the maternal perambulator, they
briskly pick themselves up, briskly scramble up a leg and make their way
to the top. It is a splendidly nimble and spirited performance. Besides,
once seated, they have to keep a firm balance in the mass; they have to
stretch and stiffen their little limbs in order to hang on to their
neighbours. As a matter of fact, there is no absolute rest for them. Now
physiology teaches us that not a fibre works without some expenditure of
energy. The animal, which can be likened, in no small measure, to our
industrial machines, demands, on the one hand, the renovation of its
organism, which wears out with movement, and, on the other, the
maintenance of the heat transformed into action. We can compare it with
the locomotive-engine. As the iron horse performs its work, it gradually
wears out its pistons, its rods, its wheels, its boiler-tubes, all of
which have to be made good from time to time. The founder and the smith
repair it, supply it, so to speak, with 'plastic food,' the food that
becomes embodied with the whole and forms part of it. But, though it
have just come from the engine-shop, it is still inert. To acquire the
power of movement, it must receive from the stoker a supply of 'energy-
producing food;' in other words, he lights a few shovelfuls of coal in
its inside. This heat will produce mechanical work.
Even so with the beast. As nothing is made from nothing, the egg
supplies first the materials of the new-born animal; then the plastic
food, the smith of living creatures, increases the body, up to a certain
limit, and renews it as it wears away. The stoker works at the same
time, without stopping. Fuel, the source of energy, makes but a short
stay in the system, where it is consumed and furnishes heat, whence
movement is derived. Life is a fire-box. Warmed by its food, the animal
machine moves, walks, runs, jumps, swims, flies, sets its locomotory
apparatus going in a thousand manners.
To return to the young Lycosae, they grow no larger until the period of
their emancipation. I find them at the age of seven months the same as
when I saw them at their birth. The egg supplied the materials necessary
for their tiny frames; and, as the loss of waste substance is, for the
moment, excessively small, or even _nil_, additional plastic food is not
needed so long as the beastie does not grow. In this respect, the
prolonged abstinence presents no difficulty. But there remains the
question of energy-producing food, which is indispensable, for the little
Lycosa moves, when necessary, and very actively at that. To what shall
we attribute the heat expended upon action, when the animal takes
absolutely no nourishment?
An idea suggests itself. We say to ourselves that, without being life, a
machine is something more than matter, for man has added a little of his
mind to it. Now the iron beast, consuming its ration of coal, is really
browsing the ancient foliage of arborescent ferns in which solar energy
has accumulated.
Beasts of flesh and blood act no otherwise. Whether they mutually devour
one another or levy tribute on the plant, they invariably quicken
themselves with the stimulant of the sun's heat, a heat stored in grass,
fruit, seed and those which feed on such. The sun, the soul of the
universe, is the supreme dispenser of energy.
Instead of being served up through the intermediary of food and passing
through the ignominious circuit of gastric chemistry, could not this
solar energy penetrate the animal directly and charge it with activity,
even as the battery charges an accumulator with power? Why not live on
sun, seeing that, after all, we find naught but sun in the fruits which
we consume?
Chemical science, that bold revolutionary, promises to provide us with
synthetic food-stuffs. The laboratory and the factory will take the
place of the farm. Why should not physical science step in as well? It
would leave the preparation of plastic food to the chemist's retorts; it
would reserve for itself that of energy-producing food, which, reduced to
its exact terms, ceases to be matter. With the aid of some ingenious
apparatus, it would pump into us our daily ration of solar energy, to be
later expended in movement, whereby the machine would be kept going
without the often painful assistance of the stomach and its adjuncts.
What a delightful world, where one would lunch off a ray of sunshine!
Is it a dream, or the anticipation of a remote reality? The problem is
one of the most important that science can set us. Let us first hear the
evidence of the young Lycosae regarding its possibilities.
For seven months, without any material nourishment, they expend strength
in moving. To wind up the mechanism of their muscles, they recruit
themselves direct with heat and light. During the time when she was
dragging the bag of eggs behind her, the mother, at the best moments of
the day, came and held up her pill to the sun. With her two hind-legs,
she lifted it out of the ground, into the full light; slowly she turned
it and returned it, so that every side might receive its share of the
vivifying rays. Well, this bath of life, which awakened the germs, is
now prolonged to keep the tender babes active.
Daily, if the sky be clear, the Lycosa, carrying her young, comes up from
the burrow, leans on the kerb and spends long hours basking in the sun.
Here, on their mother's back, the youngsters stretch their limbs
delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, take in reserves of motor
power, absorb energy.
They are motionless; but, if I only blow upon them, they stampede as
nimbly as though a hurricane were passing. Hurriedly, they disperse;
hurriedly, they reassemble: a proof that, without material nourishment,
the little animal machine is always at full pressure, ready to work. When
the shade comes, mother and sons go down again, surfeited with solar
emanations. The feast of energy at the Sun Tavern is finished for the
day. It is repeated in the same way daily, if the weather be mild, until
the hour of emancipation comes, followed by the first mouthfuls of solid
food.
CHAPTER VI: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE CLIMBING-INSTINCT
The month of March comes to an end; and the departure of the youngsters
begins, in glorious weather, during the hottest hours of the morning.
Laden with her swarming burden, the mother Lycosa is outside her burrow,
squatting on the parapet at the entrance. She lets them do as they
please; as though indifferent to what is happening, she exhibits neither
encouragement nor regret. Whoso will goes; whoso will remains behind.
First these, then those, according as they feel themselves duly soaked
with sunshine, the little ones leave the mother in batches, run about for
a moment on the ground and then quickly reach the trellis-work of the
cage, which they climb with surprising alacrity. They pass through the
meshes, they clamber right to the top of the citadel. All, with not one
exception, make for the heights, instead of roaming on the ground, as
might reasonably be expected from the eminently earthly habits of the
Lycosae; all ascend the dome, a strange procedure whereof I do not yet
guess the object.
I receive a hint from the upright ring that finishes the top of the cage.
The youngsters hurry to it. It represents the porch of their gymnasium.
They hang out threads across the opening; they stretch others from the
ring to the nearest points of the trellis-work. On these foot-bridges,
they perform slack-rope exercises amid endless comings and goings. The
tiny legs open out from time to time and straddle as though to reach the
most distant points. I begin to realize that they are acrobats aiming at
loftier heights than those of the dome.
I top the trellis with a branch that doubles the attainable height. The
bustling crowd hastily scrambles up it, reaches the tip of the topmost
twigs and thence sends out threads that attach themselves to every
surrounding object. These form so many suspension-bridges; and my
beasties nimbly run along them, incessantly passing to and fro. One
would say that they wished to climb higher still. I will endeavour to
satisfy their desires.
I take a nine-foot reed, with tiny branches spreading right up to the
top, and place it above the cage. The little Lycosae clamber to the very
summit. Here, longer threads are produced from the rope-yard and are now
left to float, anon converted into bridges by the mere contact of the
free end with the neighbouring supports. The rope-dancers embark upon
them and form garlands which the least breath of air swings daintily. The
thread is invisible when it does not come between the eyes and the sun;
and the whole suggests rows of Gnats dancing an aerial ballet.
Then, suddenly, teased by the air-currents, the delicate mooring breaks
and flies through space. Behold the emigrants off and away, clinging to
their thread. If the wind be favourable, they can land at great
distances. Their departure is thus continued for a week or two, in bands
more or less numerous, according to the temperature and the brightness of
the day. If the sky be overcast, none dreams of leaving. The travellers
need the kisses of the sun, which give energy and vigour.
At last, the whole family has disappeared, carried afar by its flying-
ropes. The mother remains alone. The loss of her offspring hardly seems
to distress her. She retains her usual colour and plumpness, which is a
sign that the maternal exertions have not been too much for her.
I also notice an increased fervour in the chase. While burdened with her
family, she was remarkably abstemious, accepting only with great reserve
the game placed at her disposal. The coldness of the season may have
militated against copious refections; perhaps also the weight of the
little ones hampered her movements and made her more discreet in
attacking the prey.
To-day, cheered by the fine weather and able to move freely, she hurries
up from her lair each time I set a tit-bit to her liking buzzing at the
entrance to her burrow; she comes and takes from my fingers the savoury
Locust, the portly Anoxia; {26} and this performance is repeated daily,
whenever I have the leisure to devote to it. After a frugal winter, the
time has come for plentiful repasts.
This appetite tells us that the animal is not at the point of death; one
does not feast in this way with a played-out stomach. My boarders are
entering in full vigour upon their fourth year. In the winter, in the
fields, I used to find large mothers, carting their young, and others not
much more than half their size. The whole series, therefore, represented
three generations. And now, in my earthenware pans, after the departure
of the family, the old matrons still carry on and continue as strong as
ever. Every outward appearance tells us that, after becoming
great-grandmothers, they still keep themselves fit for propagating their
species.
The facts correspond with these anticipations. When September returns,
my captives are dragging a bag as bulky as that of last year. For a long
time, even when the eggs of the others have been hatched for some weeks
past, the mothers come daily to the threshold of the burrow and hold out
their wallets for incubation by the sun. Their perseverance is not
rewarded: nothing issues from the satin purse; nothing stirs within. Why?
Because, in the prison of my cages, the eggs have had no father. Tired
of waiting and at last recognizing the barrenness of their produce, they
push the bag of eggs outside the burrow and trouble about it no more. At
the return of spring, by which time the family, if developed according to
rule, would have been emancipated, they die. The mighty Spider of the
waste-lands, therefore, attains to an even more patriarchal age than her
neighbour the Sacred Beetle: {27} she lives for five years at the very
least.
Let us leave the mothers to their business and return to the youngsters.
It is not without a certain surprise that we see the little Lycosae, at
the first moment of their emancipation, hasten to ascend the heights.
Destined to live on the ground, amidst the short grass, and afterwards to
settle in the permanent abode, a pit, they start by being enthusiastic
acrobats. Before descending to the low levels, their normal dwelling-
place, they affect lofty altitudes.
To rise higher and ever higher is their first need. I have not, it
seems, exhausted the limit of their climbing-instinct even with a nine-
foot pole, suitably furnished with branches to facilitate the escalade.
Those who have eagerly reached the very top wave their legs, fumble in
space as though for yet higher stalks. It behoves us to begin again and
under better conditions.
Although the Narbonne Lycosa, with her temporary yearning for the
heights, is more interesting than other Spiders, by reason of the fact
that her usual habitation is underground, she is not so striking at
swarming-time, because the youngsters, instead of all migrating at once,
leave the mother at different periods and in small batches. The sight
will be a finer one with the common Garden or Cross Spider, the Diadem
Epeira (_Epeira diadema_, LIN.), decorated with three white crosses on
her back.
She lays her eggs in November and dies with the first cold snap. She is
denied the Lycosa's longevity. She leaves the natal wallet early one
spring and never sees the following spring. This wallet, which contains
the eggs, has none of the ingenious structure which we admired in the
Banded and in the Silky Epeira. No longer do we see a graceful balloon-
shape nor yet a paraboloid with a starry base; no longer a tough,
waterproof satin stuff; no longer a swan's-down resembling a fleecy,
russet cloud; no longer an inner keg in which the eggs are packed. The
art of stout fabrics and of walls within walls is unknown here.
The work of the Cross Spider is a pill of white silk, wrought into a
yielding felt, through which the new-born Spiders will easily work their
way, without the aid of the mother, long since dead, and without having
to rely upon its bursting at the given hour. It is about the size of a
damson.
We can judge the method of manufacture from the structure. Like the
Lycosa, whom we saw, in Chapter III., at work in one of my earthenware
pans, the Cross Spider, on the support supplied by a few threads
stretched between the nearest objects, begins by making a shallow saucer
of sufficient thickness to dispense with subsequent corrections. The
process is easily guessed. The tip of the abdomen goes up and down, down
and up with an even beat, while the worker shifts her place a little.
Each time, the spinnerets add a bit of thread to the carpet already made.
When the requisite thickness is obtained, the mother empties her ovaries,
in one continuous flow, into the centre of the bowl. Glued together by
their inherent moisture, the eggs, of a handsome orange-yellow, form a
ball-shaped heap. The work of the spinnerets is resumed. The ball of
germs is covered with a silk cap, fashioned in the same way as the
saucer. The two halves of the work are so well joined that the whole
constitutes an unbroken sphere.
The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira, those experts in the manufacture
of rainproof textures, lay their eggs high up, on brushwood and bramble,
without shelter of any kind. The thick material of the wallets is enough
to protect the eggs from the inclemencies of the winter, especially from
damp. The Diadem Epeira, or Cross Spider, needs a cranny for hers, which
is contained in a non-waterproof felt. In a heap of stones, well exposed
to the sun, she will choose a large slab to serve as a roof. She lodges
her pill underneath it, in the company of the hibernating Snail.
More often still, she prefers the thick tangle of some dwarf shrub,
standing eight or nine inches high and retaining its leaves in winter. In
the absence of anything better, a tuft of grass answers the purpose.
Whatever the hiding-place, the bag of eggs is always near the ground,
tucked away as well as may be, amid the surrounding twigs.
Save in the case of the roof supplied by a large stone, we see that the
site selected hardly satisfies proper hygienic needs. The Epeira seems
to realize this fact. By way of an additional protection, even under a
stone, she never fails to make a thatched roof for her eggs. She builds
them a covering with bits of fine, dry grass, joined together with a
little silk. The abode of the eggs becomes a straw wigwam.
Good luck procures me two Cross Spiders' nests, on the edge of one of the
paths in the enclosure, among some tufts of ground-cypress, or lavender-
cotton. This is just what I wanted for my plans. The find is all the
more valuable as the period of the exodus is near at hand.
I prepare two lengths of bamboo, standing about fifteen feet high and
clustered with little twigs from top to bottom. I plant one of them
straight up in the tuft, beside the first nest. I clear the surrounding
ground, because the bushy vegetation might easily, thanks to threads
carried by the wind, divert the emigrants from the road which I have laid
out for them. The other bamboo I set up in the middle of the yard, all
by itself, some few steps from any outstanding object. The second nest
is removed as it is, shrub and all, and placed at the bottom of the tall,
ragged distaff.
The events expected are not long in coming. In the first fortnight in
May, a little earlier in one case, a little later in the other, the two
families, each presented with a bamboo climbing-pole, leave their
respective wallets. There is nothing remarkable about the mode of
egress. The precincts to be crossed consist of a very slack net-work,
through which the outcomers wriggle: weak little orange-yellow beasties,
with a triangular black patch upon their sterns. One morning is long
enough for the whole family to make its appearance.
By degrees, the emancipated youngsters climb the nearest twigs, clamber
to the top, and spread a few threads. Soon, they gather in a compact,
ball-shaped cluster, the size of a walnut. They remain motionless. With
their heads plunged into the heap and their sterns projecting, they doze
gently, mellowing under the kisses of the sun. Rich in the possession of
a thread in their belly as their sole inheritance, they prepare to
disperse over the wide world.
Let us create a disturbance among the globular group by stirring it with
a straw. All wake up at once. The cluster softly dilates and spreads,
as though set in motion by some centrifugal force; it becomes a
transparent orb wherein thousands and thousands of tiny legs quiver and
shake, while threads are extended along the way to be followed. The
whole work resolves itself into a delicate veil which swallows up the
scattered family. We then see an exquisite nebula against whose
opalescent tapestry the tiny animals gleam like twinkling orange stars.
This straggling state, though it last for hours, is but temporary. If
the air grow cooler, if rain threaten, the spherical group reforms at
once. This is a protective measure. On the morning after a shower, I
find the families on either bamboo in as good condition as on the day
before. The silk veil and the pill formation have sheltered them well
enough from the downpour. Even so do Sheep, when caught in a storm in
the pastures, gather close, huddle together and make a common rampart of
their backs.
The assembly into a ball-shaped mass is also the rule in calm, bright
weather, after the morning's exertions. In the afternoon, the climbers
collect at a higher point, where they weave a wide, conical tent, with
the end of a shoot for its top, and, gathered into a compact group, spend
the night there. Next day, when the heat returns, the ascent is resumed
in long files, following the shrouds which a few pioneers have rigged and
which those who come after elaborate with their own work.
Collected nightly into a globular troop and sheltered under a fresh tent,
for three or four days, each morning, before the sun grows too hot, my
little emigrants thus raise themselves, stage by stage, on both bamboos,
until they reach the sun-unit, at fifteen feet above the ground. The
climb comes to an end for lack of foothold.
Under normal conditions, the ascent would be shorter. The young Spiders
have at their disposal the bushes, the brushwood, providing supports on
every side for the threads wafted hither and thither by the eddying air-
currents. With these rope-bridges flung across space, the dispersal
presents no difficulties. Each emigrant leaves at his own good time and
travels as suits him best.
My devices have changed these conditions somewhat. My two bristling
poles stand at a distance from the surrounding shrubs, especially the one
which I planted in the middle of the yard. Bridges are out of the
question, for the threads flung into the air are not long enough. And so
the acrobats, eager to get away, keep on climbing, never come down again,
are impelled to seek in a higher position what they have failed to find
in a lower. The top of my two bamboos probably fails to represent the
limit of what my keen climbers are capable of achieving.
We shall see, in a moment, the object of this climbing-propensity, which
is a sufficiently remarkable instinct in the Garden Spiders, who have as
their domain the low-growing brushwood wherein their nets are spread; it
becomes a still more remarkable instinct in the Lycosa, who, except at
the moment when she leaves her mother's back, never quits the ground and
yet, in the early hours of her life, shows herself as ardent a wooer of
high places as the young Garden Spiders.
Let us consider the Lycosa in particular. In her, at the moment of the
exodus, a sudden instinct arises, to disappear, as promptly and for ever,
a few hours later. This is the climbing-instinct, which is unknown to
the adult and soon forgotten by the emancipated youngling, doomed to
wander homeless, for many a long day, upon the ground. Neither of them
dreams of climbing to the top of a grass-stalk. The full-grown Spider
hunts trapper-fashion, ambushed in her tower; the young one hunts afoot
through the scrubby grass. In both cases there is no web and therefore
no need for lofty contact-points. They are not allowed to quit the
ground and climb the heights.
Yet here we have the young Lycosa, wishing to leave the maternal abode
and to travel far afield by the easiest and swiftest methods, suddenly
becoming an enthusiastic climber. Impetuously she scales the wire
trellis of the cage where she was born; hurriedly she clambers to the top
of the tall mast which I have prepared for her. In the same way, she
would make for the summit of the bushes in her waste-land.
We catch a glimpse of her object. From on high, finding a wide space
beneath her, she sends a thread floating. It is caught by the wind and
carries her hanging to it. We have our aeroplanes; she too possesses her
flying-machine. Once the journey is accomplished, naught remains of this
ingenious business. The climbing-instinct conies suddenly, at the hour
of need, and no less suddenly vanishes.
CHAPTER VII: THE SPIDERS' EXODUS
Seeds, when ripened in the fruit, are disseminated, that is to say,
scattered on the surface of the ground, to sprout in spots as yet
unoccupied and fill the expanses that realize favourable conditions.
Amid the wayside rubbish grows one of the gourd family, _Ecbalium
elaterium_, commonly called the squirting cucumber, whose fruit--a rough
and extremely bitter little cucumber--is the size of a date. When ripe,
the fleshy core resolves into a liquid in which float the seeds.
Compressed by the elastic rind of the fruit, this liquid bears upon the
base of the footstalk, which is gradually forced out, yields like a
stopper, breaks off and leaves an orifice through which a stream of seeds
and fluid pulp is suddenly ejected. If, with a novice hand, under a
scorching sun, you shake the plant laden with yellow fruit, you are bound
to be somewhat startled when you hear a noise among the leaves and
receive the cucumber's grapeshot in your face.
The fruit of the garden balsam, when ripe, splits, at the least touch,
into five fleshy valves, which curl up and shoot their seeds to a
distance. The botanical name of _Impatiens_ given to the balsam alludes
to this sudden dehiscence of the capsules, which cannot endure contact
without bursting.
In the damp and shady places of the woods there exists a plant of the
same family which, for similar reasons, bears the even more expressive
name of _Impatiens noli-me-tangere_, or touch-me-not.
The capsule of the pansy expands into three valves, each scooped out like
a boat and laden in the middle with two rows of seeds. When these valves
dry, the edges shrivel, press upon the grains and eject them.
Light seeds, especially those of the order of Compositae, have aeronautic
apparatus--tufts, plumes, fly-wheels--which keep them up in the air and
enable them to take distant voyages. In this way, at the least breath,
the seeds of the dandelion, surmounted by a tuft of feathers, fly from
their dry receptacle and waft gently in the air.
Next to the tuft, the wing is the most satisfactory contrivance for
dissemination by wind. Thanks to their membranous edge, which gives them
the appearance of thin scales, the seeds of the yellow wall-flower reach
high cornices of buildings, clefts of inaccessible rocks, crannies in old
walls, and sprout in the remnant of mould bequeathed by the mosses that
were there before them.
The samaras, or keys, of the elm, formed of a broad, light fan with the
seed cased in its centre; those of the maple, joined in pairs and
resembling the unfurled wings of a bird; those of the ash, carved like
the blade of an oar, perform the most distant journeys when driven before
the storm.
Like the plant, the insect also sometimes possesses travelling-apparatus,
means of dissemination that allow large families to disperse quickly over
the country, so that each member may have his place in the sun without
injuring his neighbour; and these apparatus, these methods vie in
ingenuity with the elm's samara, the dandelion-plume and the catapult of
the squirting cucumber.
Let us consider, in particular, the Epeirae, those magnificent Spiders
who, to catch their prey, stretch, between one bush and the next, great
vertical sheets of meshes, resembling those of the fowler. The most
remarkable in my district is the Banded Epeira (_Epeira fasciata_,
WALCK.), so prettily belted with yellow, black and silvery white. Her
nest, a marvel of gracefulness, is a satin bag, shaped like a tiny pear.
Its neck ends in a concave mouthpiece closed with a lid, also of satin.
Brown ribbons, in fanciful meridian waves, adorn the object from pole to
pole.
Open the nest. We have seen, in an earlier chapter, {28} what we find
there; let us retell the story. Under the outer wrapper, which is as
stout as our woven stuffs and, moreover, perfectly waterproof, is a
russet eiderdown of exquisite delicacy, a silky fluff resembling driven
smoke. Nowhere does mother-love prepare a softer bed.
In the middle of this downy mass hangs a fine, silk, thimble-shaped
purse, closed with a movable lid. This contains the eggs, of a pretty
orange-yellow and about five hundred in number.
All things considered, is not this charming edifice an animal fruit, a
germ-casket, a capsule to be compared with that of the plants? Only, the
Epeira's wallet, instead of seeds, holds eggs. The difference is more
apparent than real, for egg and grain are one.
How will this living fruit, ripening in the heat beloved of the Cicadae,
manage to burst? How, above all, will dissemination take place? They
are there in their hundreds. They must separate, go far away, isolate
themselves in a spot where there is not too much fear of competition
among neighbours. How will they set to work to achieve this distant
exodus, weaklings that they are, taking such very tiny steps?
I receive the first answer from another and much earlier Epeira, whose
family I find, at the beginning of May, on a yucca in the enclosure. The
plant blossomed last year. The branching flower-stem, some three feet
high, still stands erect, though withered. On the green leaves, shaped
like a sword-blade, swarm two newly-hatched families. The wee beasties
are a dull yellow, with a triangular black patch upon their stern. Later
on, three white crosses, ornamenting the back, will tell me that my find
corresponds with the Cross or Diadem Spider (_Epeira diadema_, WALCK.).
When the sun reaches this part of the enclosure, one of the two groups
falls into a great state of flutter. Nimble acrobats that they are, the
little Spiders scramble up, one after the other, and reach the top of the
stem. Here, marches and countermarches, tumult and confusion reign, for
there is a slight breeze which throws the troop into disorder. I see no
connected manoeuvres. From the top of the stalk they set out at every
moment, one by one; they dart off suddenly; they fly away, so to speak.
It is as though they had the wings of a Gnat.
Forthwith they disappear from view. Nothing that my eyes can see
explains this strange flight; for precise observation is impossible amid
the disturbing influences out of doors. What is wanted is a peaceful
atmosphere and the quiet of my study.
I gather the family in a large box, which I close at once, and instal it
in the animals' laboratory, on a small table, two steps from the open
window. Apprised by what I have just seen of their propensity to resort
to the heights, I give my subjects a bundle of twigs, eighteen inches
tall, as a climbing-pole. The whole band hurriedly clambers up and
reaches the top. In a few moments there is not one lacking in the group
on high. The future will tell us the reason of this assemblage on the
projecting tips of the twigs.
The little Spiders are now spinning here and there at random: they go up,
go down, come up again. Thus is woven a light veil of divergent threads,
a many-cornered web with the end of the branch for its summit and the
edge of the table for its base, some eighteen inches wide. This veil is
the drill-ground, the work-yard where the preparations for departure are
made.
Here hasten the humble little creatures, running indefatigably to and
fro. When the sun shines upon them, they become gleaming specks and form
upon the milky background of the veil a sort of constellation, a reflex
of those remote points in the sky where the telescope shows us endless
galaxies of stars. The immeasurably small and the immeasurably large are
alike in appearance. It is all a matter of distance.
But the living nebula is not composed of fixed stars; on the contrary,
its specks are in continual movement. The young Spiders never cease
shifting their position on the web. Many let themselves drop, hanging by
a length of thread, which the faller's weight draws from the spinnerets.
Then quickly they climb up again by the same thread, which they wind
gradually into a skein and lengthen by successive falls. Others confine
themselves to running about the web and also give me the impression of
working at a bundle of ropes.
The thread, as a matter of fact, does not flow from the spinneret; it is
drawn thence with a certain effort. It is a case of extraction, not
emission. To obtain her slender cord, the Spider has to move about and
haul, either by falling or by walking, even as the rope-maker steps
backwards when working his hemp. The activity now displayed on the drill-
ground is a preparation for the approaching dispersal. The travellers
are packing up.
Soon we see a few Spiders trotting briskly between the table and the open
window. They are running in mid-air. But on what? If the light fall
favourably, I manage to see, at moments, behind the tiny animal, a thread
resembling a ray of light, which appears for an instant, gleams and
disappears. Behind, therefore, there is a mooring, only just
perceptible, if you look very carefully; but, in front, towards the
window, there is nothing to be seen at all.
In vain I examine above, below, at the side; in vain I vary the direction
of the eye: I can distinguish no support for the little creature to walk
upon. One would think that the beastie were paddling in space. It
suggests the idea of a small bird, tied by the leg with a thread and
making a flying rush forwards.
But, in this case, appearances are deceptive: flight is impossible; the
Spider must necessarily have a bridge whereby to cross the intervening
space. This bridge, which I cannot see, I can at least destroy. I
cleave the air with a ruler in front of the Spider making for the window.
That is quite enough: the tiny animal at once ceases to go forward and
falls. The invisible foot-plank is broken. My son, young Paul, who is
helping me, is astounded at this wave of the magic wand, for not even he,
with his fresh, young eyes, is able to see a support ahead for the
Spiderling to move along.
In the rear, on the other hand, a thread is visible. The difference is
easily explained. Every Spider, as she goes, at the same time spins a
safety-cord which will guard the rope-walker against the risk of an
always possible fall. In the rear, therefore, the thread is of double
thickness and can be seen, whereas, in front, it is still single and
hardly perceptible to the eye.
Obviously, this invisible foot-bridge is not flung out by the animal: it
is carried and unrolled by a gust of air. The Epeira, supplied with this
line, lets it float freely; and the wind, however softly blowing, bears
it along and unwinds it. Even so is the smoke from the bowl of a pipe
whirled up in the air.
This floating thread has but to touch any object in the neighbourhood and
it will remain fixed to it. The suspension-bridge is thrown; and the
Spider can set out. The South-American Indians are said to cross the
abysses of the Cordilleras in travelling-cradles made of twisted
creepers; the little Spider passes through space on the invisible and the
imponderable.
But to carry the end of the floating thread elsewhither a draught is
needed. At this moment, the draught exists between the door of my study
and the window, both of which are open. It is so slight that I do not
feel its; I only know of it by the smoke from my pipe, curling softly in
that direction. Cold air enters from without through the door; warm air
escapes from the room through the window. This is the drought that
carries the threads with it and enables the Spiders to embark upon their
journey.
I get rid of it by closing both apertures and I break off any
communication by passing my ruler between the window and the table.
Henceforth, in the motionless atmosphere, there are no departures. The
current of air is missing, the skeins are not unwound and migration
becomes impossible.
It is soon resumed, but in a direction whereof I never dreamt. The hot
sun is beating on a certain part of the floor. At this spot, which is
warmer than the rest, a column of lighter, ascending air is generated. If
this column catch the threads, my Spiders ought to rise to the ceiling of
the room.
The curious ascent does, in fact, take place. Unfortunately, my troop,
which has been greatly reduced by the number of departures through the
window, does not lend itself to prolonged experiment. We must begin
again.
The next morning, on the same yucca, I gather the second family, as
numerous as the first. Yesterday's preparations are repeated. My legion
of Spiders first weaves a divergent framework between the top of the
brushwood placed at the emigrants' disposal and the edge of the table.
Five or six hundred wee beasties swarm all over this work-yard.
While this little world is busily fussing, making its arrangements for
departure, I make my own. Every aperture in the room is closed, so as to
obtain as calm an atmosphere as possible. A small chafing-dish is lit at
the foot of the table. My hands cannot feel the heat of it at the level
of the web whereon my Spiders are weaving. This is the very modest fire
which, with its column of rising air, shall unwind the threads and carry
them on high.
Let us first enquire the direction and strength of the current. Dandelion-
plumes, made lighter by the removal of their seeds, serve as my guides.
Released above the chafing-dish, on the level of the table, they float
slowly upwards and, for the most part, reach the ceiling. The emigrants'
lines should rise in the same way and even better.
The thing is done: with the aid of nothing that is visible to the three
of us looking on, a Spider makes her ascent. She ambles with her eight
legs through the air; she mounts, gently swaying. The others, in ever-
increasing numbers, follow, sometimes by different roads, sometimes by
the same road. Any one who did not possess the secret would stand amazed
at this magic ascent without a ladder. In a few minutes, most of them
are up, clinging to the ceiling.
Not all of them reach it. I see some who, on attaining a certain height,
cease to go up and even lose ground, although moving their legs forward
with all the nimbleness of which they are capable. The more they
struggle upwards, the faster they come down. This drifting, which
neutralizes the distance covered and even converts it into a
retrogression, is easily explained.
The thread has not reached the platform; it floats, it is fixed only at
the lower end. As long as it is of a fair length, it is able, although
moving, to bear the minute animal's weight. But, as the Spider climbs,
the float becomes shorter in proportion; and the time comes when a
balance is struck between the ascensional force of the thread and the
weight carried. Then the beastie remains stationary, although continuing
to climb.
Presently, the weight becomes too much for the shorter and shorter float;
and the Spider slips down, in spite of her persistent, forward striving.
She is at last brought back to the branch by the falling threads. Here,
the ascent is soon renewed, either on a fresh thread, if the supply of
silk be not yet exhausted, or on a strange thread, the work, of those who
have gone before.
As a rule, the ceiling is reached. It is twelve feet high. The little
Spider is able, therefore, as the first product of her spinning-mill,
before taking any refreshment, to obtain a line fully twelve feet in
length. And all this, the rope-maker and her rope, was contained in the
egg, a particle of no size at all. To what a degree of fineness can the
silky matter be wrought wherewith the young Spider is provided! Our
manufacturers are able to turn out platinum-wire that can only be seen
when it is made red-hot. With much simpler means, the Spiderling draws
from her wire-mill threads so delicate that, even the brilliant light of
the sun does not always enable us to discern them.
We must not let all the climbers be stranded on the ceiling, an
inhospitable region where most of them will doubtless perish, being
unable to produce a second thread before they have had a meal. I open
the window. A current of lukewarm air, coming from the chafing-dish,
escapes through the top. Dandelion-plumes, taking that direction, tell
me so. The wafting threads cannot fail to be carried by this flow of air
and to lengthen out in the open, where a light breeze is blowing.
I take a pair of sharp scissors and, without shaking the threads, cut a
few that are just visible at the base, where they are thickened with an
added strand. The result of this operation is marvellous. Hanging to
the flying-rope, which is borne on the wind outside, the Spider passes
through the window, suddenly flies off and disappears. An easy way of
travelling, if the conveyance possessed a rudder that allowed the
passenger to land where he pleases! But the little things are at the
mercy of the winds: where will they alight? Hundreds, thousands of yards
away, perhaps. Let us wish them a prosperous journey.
The problem of dissemination is now solved. What would happen if
matters, instead of being brought about by my wiles, took place in the
open fields? The answer is obvious. The young Spiders, born acrobats
and rope-walkers, climb to the top of a branch so as to find sufficient
space below them to unfurl their apparatus. Here, each draws from her
rope-factory a thread which she abandons to the eddies of the air. Gently
raised by the currents that ascend from the ground warmed by the sun,
this thread wafts upwards, floats, undulates, makes for its point of
contact. At last, it breaks and vanishes in the distance, carrying the
spinstress hanging to it.
The Epeira with the three white crosses, the Spider who has supplied us
with these first data concerning the process of dissemination, is endowed
with a moderate maternal industry. As a receptacle for the eggs, she
weaves a mere pill of silk. Her work is modest indeed beside the Banded
Epeira's balloons. I looked to these to supply me with fuller documents.
I had laid up a store by rearing some mothers during the autumn. So that
nothing of importance might escape me, I divided my stock of balloons,
most of which were woven before my eyes, into two sections. One half
remained in my study, under a wire-gauze cover, with, small bunches of
brushwood as supports; the other half were experiencing the vicissitudes
of open-air life on the rosemaries in the enclosure.
These preparations, which promised so well, did not provide me with the
sight which I expected, namely, a magnificent exodus, worthy of the
tabernacle occupied. However, a few results, not devoid of interest, are
to be noted. Let us state them briefly.
The hatching takes place as March approaches. When this time comes, let
us open the Banded Epeira's nest with the scissors. We shall find that
some of the youngsters have already left the central chamber and
scattered over the surrounding eiderdown, while the rest of the laying
still consists of a compact mass of orange eggs. The appearance of the
younglings is not simultaneous; it takes place with intermissions and may
last a couple of weeks.
Nothing as yet suggests the future, richly-striped livery. The abdomen
is white and, as it were, floury in the front half; in the other half it
is a blackish-brown. The rest of the body is pale-yellow, except in
front, where the eyes form a black edging. When left alone, the little
ones remain motionless in the soft, russet swan's-down; if disturbed,
they shuffle lazily where they are, or even walk about in a hesitating
and unsteady fashion. One can see that they have to ripen before
venturing outside.
Maturity is achieved in the exquisite floss that surrounds the natal
chamber and fills out the balloon. This is the waiting-room in which the
body hardens. All dive into it as and when they emerge from the central
keg. They will not leave it until four months later, when the midsummer
heats have come.
Their number is considerable. A patient and careful census gives me
nearly six hundred. And all this comes out of a purse no larger than a
pea. By what miracle is there room for such a family? How do those
thousands of legs manage to grow without straining themselves?
The egg-bag, as we learnt in Chapter II., is a short cylinder rounded at
the bottom. It is formed of compact white satin, an insuperable barrier.
It opens into a round orifice wherein is bedded a lid of the same
material, through which the feeble beasties would be incapable of
passing. It is not a porous felt, but a fabric as tough as that of the
sack. Then by what mechanism is the delivery effected?
Observe that the disk of the lid doubles back into a short fold, which
edges into the orifice of the bag. In the same way, the lid of a
saucepan fits the mouth by means of a projecting rim, with this
difference, that the rim is not attached to the saucepan, whereas, in the
Epeira's work, it is soldered to the bag or nest. Well, at the time of
the hatching, this disk becomes unstuck, lifts and allows the new-born
Spiders to pass through.
If the rim were movable and simply inserted, if, moreover, the birth of
all the family took place at the same time, we might think that the door
is forced open by the living wave of inmates, who would set their backs
to it with a common effort. We should find an approximate image in the
case of the saucepan, whose lid is raised by the boiling of its contents.
But the fabric of the cover is one with the fabric of the bag, the two
are closely welded; besides, the hatching is effected in small batches,
incapable of the least exertion. There must, therefore, be a spontaneous
bursting, or dehiscence, independent of the assistance of the youngsters
and similar to that of the seed-pods of plants.
When fully ripened, the dry fruit of the snap-dragon opens three windows;
that of the pimpernel splits into two rounded halves, something like
those of the outer case of a fob-watch; the fruit of the carnation partly
unseals its valves and opens at the top into a star-shaped hatch. Each
seed-casket has its own system of locks, which are made to work smoothly
by the mere kiss of the sun.
Well, that other dry fruit, the Banded Epeira's germ-box, likewise
possesses its bursting-gear. As long as the eggs remain unhatched, the
door, solidly fixed in its frame, holds good; as soon as the little ones
swarm and want to get out, it opens of itself.
Come June and July, beloved of the Cicadae, no less beloved of the young
Spiders who are anxious to be off. It were difficult indeed for them to
work their way through the thick shell of the balloon. For the second
time, a spontaneous dehiscence seems called for. Where will it be
effected?
The idea occurs off-hand that it will take place along the edges of the
top cover. Remember the details given in an earlier chapter. The neck
of the balloon ends in a wide crater, which is closed by a ceiling dug
out cup-wise. The material is as stout in this part as in any other;
but, as the lid was the finishing touch to the work, we expect to find an
incomplete soldering, which would allow it to be unfastened.
The method of construction deceives us: the ceiling is immovable; at no
season can my forceps manage to extract it, without destroying the
building from top to bottom. The dehiscence takes place elsewhere, at
some point on the sides. Nothing informs us, nothing suggests to us that
it will occur at one place rather than another.
Moreover, to tell the truth, it is not a dehiscence prepared by means of
some dainty piece of mechanism; it is a very irregular tear. Somewhat
sharply, under the fierce heat of the sun, the satin bursts like the rind
of an over-ripe pomegranate. Judging by the result, we think of the
expansion of the air inside, which, heated by the sun, causes this
rupture. The signs of pressure from within are manifest: the tatters of
the torn fabric are turned outwards; also, a wisp of the russet eiderdown
that fills the wallet invariably straggles through the breach. In the
midst of the protruding floss, the Spiderlings, expelled from their home
by the explosion, are in frantic commotion.
The balloons of the Banded Epeira are bombs which, to free their
contents, burst under the rays of a torrid sun. To break they need the
fiery heat-waves of the dog-days. When kept in the moderate atmosphere
of my study, most of them do not open and the emergence of the young does
not take place, unless I myself I have a hand in the business; a few
others open with a round hole, a hole so neat that it might have been
made with a punch. This aperture is the work of the prisoners, who,
relieving one another in turns, have, with a patient tooth, bitten
through the stuff of the jar at some point or other.
When exposed to the full force of the sun, however, on the rosemaries in
the enclosure, the balloons burst and shoot forth a ruddy flood of floss
and tiny animals. That is how things occur in the free sun-bath of the
fields. Unsheltered, among the bushes, the wallet of the Banded Epeira,
when the July heat arrives, splits under the effort of the inner air. The
delivery is effected by an explosion of the dwelling.
A very small part of the family are expelled with the flow of tawny
floss; the vast majority remain in the bag, which is ripped open, but
still bulges with eiderdown. Now that the breach is made, any one can go
out who pleases, in his own good time, without hurrying. Besides, a
solemn action has to be performed before the emigration. The animal must
cast its skin; and the moult is an event that does not fall on the same
date for all. The evacuation of the place, therefore, lasts several
days. It is effected in small squads, as the slough is flung aside.
Those who sally forth climb up the neighbouring twigs and there, in the
full heat of the sun, proceed with the work of dissemination. The method
is the same as that which we saw in the case of the Cross Spider. The
spinnerets abandon to the breeze a thread that floats, breaks and flies
away, carrying the rope-maker with it. The number of starters on any one
morning is so small as to rob the spectacle of the greater part of its
interest. The scene lacks animation because of the absence of a crowd.
To my intense disappointment, the Silky Epeira does not either indulge in
a tumultuous and dashing exodus. Let me remind you of her handiwork, the
handsomest of the maternal wallets, next to the Banded Epeira's. It is
an obtuse conoid, closed with a star-shaped disk. It is made of a
stouter and especially a thicker material than the Banded Epeira's
balloon, for which reason a spontaneous rupture becomes more necessary
than ever.
This rupture is effected at the sides of the bag, not far from the edge
of the lid. Like the ripping of the balloon, it requires the rough aid
of the heat of July. Its mechanism also seems to work by the expansion
of the heated air, for we again see a partial emission of the silky floss
that fills the pouch.
The exit of the family is performed in a single group and, this time,
before the moult, perhaps for lack of the space necessary for the
delicate casting of the skin. The conical bag falls far short of the
balloon in size; those packed within would sprain their legs in
extracting them from their sheaths. The family, therefore, emerges in a
body and settles on a sprig hard by.
This is a temporary camping-ground, where, spinning in unison, the
youngsters soon weave an open-work tent, the abode of a week, or
thereabouts. The moult is effected in this lounge of intersecting
threads. The sloughed skins form a heap at the bottom of the dwelling;
on the trapezes above, the flaylings take exercise and gain strength and
vigour. Finally, when maturity is attained, they set out, now these, now
those, little by little and always cautiously. There are no audacious
flights on the thready airship; the journey is accomplished by modest
stages.
Hanging to her thread, the Spider lets herself drop straight down, to a
depth of nine or ten inches. A breath of air sets her swinging like a
pendulum, sometimes drives her against a neighbouring branch. This is a
step towards the dispersal. At the point reached, there is a fresh fall,
followed by a fresh pendulous swing that lands her a little farther
afield. Thus, in short tacks, for the thread is never very long, does
the Spiderling go about, seeing the country, until she comes to a place
that suits her. Should the wind blow at all hard, the voyage is cut
short: the cable of the pendulum breaks and the beastie is carried for
some distance on its cord.
To sum up, although, on the whole, the tactics of the exodus remain much
the same, the two spinstresses of my region best-versed in the art of
weaving mothers' wallets failed to come up to my expectations. I went to
the trouble of rearing them, with disappointing results. Where shall I
find again the wonderful spectacle which the Cross Spider offered me by
chance? I shall find it--in an even more striking fashion--among humbler
Spiders, whom I had neglected to observe.
CHAPTER VIII: THE CRAB SPIDER
The Spider that showed me the exodus in all its magnificence is known
officially as _Thomisus onustus_, WALCK. Though the name suggest nothing
to the reader's mind, it has the advantage, at any rate, of hurting
neither the throat nor the ear, as is too often the case with scientific
nomenclature, which sounds more like sneezing than articulate speech.
Since it is the rule to dignify plants and animals with a Latin label,
let us at least respect the euphony of the classics and refrain from
harsh splutters which spit out a name instead of pronouncing it.
What will posterity do in face of the rising tide of a barbarous
vocabulary which, under the pretence of progress, stifles real knowledge?
It will relegate the whole business to the quagmire of oblivion. But
what will never disappear is the popular name, which sounds well, is
picturesque and conveys some sort of information. Such is the term Crab
Spider, applied by the ancients to the group to which the Thomisus
belongs, a pretty accurate term, for, in this case, there is an evident
analogy between the Spider and the Crustacean.
Like the Crab, the Thomisus walks sideways; she also has forelegs
stronger than her hind-legs. The only thing wanting to complete the
resemblance is the front pair of stone gauntlets, raised in the attitude
of self-defence.
The Spider with the Crab-like figure does not know how to manufacture
nets for catching game. Without springs or snares, she lies in ambush,
among the flowers, and awaits the arrival of the quarry, which she kills
by administering a scientific stab in the neck. The Thomisus, in
particular, the subject of this chapter, is passionately addicted to the
pursuit of the Domestic Bee. I have described the contests between the
victim and her executioner, at greater length, elsewhere.
The Bee appears, seeking no quarrel, intent upon plunder. She tests the
flowers with her tongue; she selects a spot that will yield a good
return. Soon she is wrapped up in her harvesting. While she is filling
her baskets and distending her crop, the Thomisus, that bandit lurking
under cover of the flowers, issues from her hiding-place, creeps round
behind the bustling insect, steals up close and, with a sudden rush, nabs
her in the nape of the neck. In vain, the Bee protests and darts her
sting at random; the assailant does not let go.
Besides, the bite in the neck is paralysing, because the cervical nerve-
centres are affected. The poor thing's legs stiffen; and all is over in
a second. The murderess now sucks the victim's blood at her ease and,
when she has done, scornfully flings the drained corpse aside. She hides
herself once more, ready to bleed a second gleaner should the occasion
offer.
This slaughter of the Bee engaged in the hallowed delights of labour has
always revolted me. Why should there be workers to feed idlers, why
sweated to keep sweaters in luxury? Why should so many admirable lives
be sacrificed to the greater prosperity of brigandage? These hateful
discords amid the general harmony perplex the thinker, all the more as we
shall see the cruel vampire become a model of devotion where her family
is concerned.
The ogre loved his children; he ate the children of others. Under the
tyranny of the stomach, we are all of us, beasts and men alike, ogres.
The dignity of labour, the joy of life, maternal affection, the terrors
of death: all these do not count, in others; the main point is that
morsel the be tender and savoury.
According to the etymology of her name--[Greek text], a cord--the
Thomisus should be like the ancient lictor, who bound the sufferer to the
stake. The comparison is not inappropriate as regards many Spiders who
tie their prey with a thread to subdue it and consume it at their ease;
but it just happens that the Thomisus is at variance with her label. She
does not fasten her Bee, who, dying suddenly of a bite in the neck,
offers no resistance to her consumer. Carried away by his recollection
of the regular tactics, our Spider's godfather overlooked the exception;
he did not know of the perfidious mode of attack which renders the use of
a bow-string superfluous.
Nor is the second name of _onustus_--loaded, burdened, freighted--any too
happily chosen. The fact that the Bee-huntress carries a heavy paunch is
no reason to refer to this as a distinctive characteristic. Nearly all
Spiders have a voluminous belly, a silk-warehouse where, in some cases,
the rigging of the net, in others, the swan's-down of the nest is
manufactured. The Thomisus, a first-class nest-builder, does like the
rest: she hoards in her abdomen, but without undue display of obesity,
the wherewithal to house her family snugly.
Can the expression _onustus_ refer simply to her slow and sidelong walk?
The explanation appeals to me, without satisfying me fully. Except in
the case of a sudden alarm, every Spider maintains a sober gait and a
wary pace. When all is said, the scientific term is composed of a
misconception and a worthless epithet. How difficult it is to name
animals rationally! Let us be indulgent to the nomenclator: the
dictionary is becoming exhausted and the constant flood that requires
cataloguing mounts incessantly, wearing out our combinations of
syllables.
As the technical name tells the reader nothing, how shall he be informed?
I see but one means, which is to invite him to the May festivals, in the
waste-lands of the South. The murderess of the Bees is of a chilly
constitution; in our parts, she hardly ever moves away from the olive-
districts. Her favourite shrub is the white-leaved rock-rose (_Cistus
albidus_), with the large, pink, crumpled, ephemeral blooms that last but
a morning and are replaced, next day, by fresh flowers, which have
blossomed in the cool dawn. This glorious efflorescence goes on for five
or six weeks.
Here, the Bees plunder enthusiastically, fussing and bustling in the
spacious whorl of the stamens, which beflour them with yellow. Their
persecutrix knows of this affluence. She posts herself in her
watch-house, under the rosy screen of a petal. Cast your eyes over the
flower, more or less everywhere. If you see a Bee lying lifeless, with
legs and tongue out-stretched, draw nearer: the Thomisus will be there,
nine times out of ten. The thug has struck her blow; she is draining the
blood of the departed.
After all, this cutter of Bees' throats is a pretty, a very pretty
creature, despite her unwieldy paunch fashioned like a squat pyramid and
embossed on the base, on either side, with a pimple shaped like a camel's
hump. The skin, more pleasing to the eye than any satin, is milk-white
in some, in others lemon-yellow. There are fine ladies among them who
adorn their legs with a number of pink bracelets and their back with
carmine arabesques. A narrow pale-green ribbon sometimes edges the right
and left of the breast. It is not so rich as the costume of the Banded
Epeira, but much more elegant because of its soberness, its daintiness
and the artful blending of its hues.
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