Insect Adventures 6

Insect Adventures 6

The net needs to be firm to hold the heavy insects that light on it. The Spider cannot pick and choose her prizes. Seated motionless in the center of the web, her eight legs widespread to feel the shaking of the network in any direction, she waits for what luck will bring her: sometimes some giddy weak thing unable to control its flight, sometimes some powerful prey rushing headlong with a reckless bound. [Illustration] 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 legs 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 Banded Spider works all her spinnerets—the spinneret is the organ with which she makes her silk, and is pierced with tiny holes like the mouth of a watering-pot—at one and the same time. She gathers the silky spray with her hind-legs, which are longer than the others and open wide apart to allow the silk to spread. In this way the Spider obtains not a thread but a rainbow-colored sheet, a sort of clouded fan wherein the threads are kept almost separate. Her two hind-legs fling this sheet, or shroud, by rapid alternate armfuls, while, at the same time, they turn the Locust over and over, swathing it completely. The gladiator of old times, when forced to fight against powerful wild beasts, appeared in the ring 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 as a fisherman does; he covered the beast and tangled it in the meshes. A thrust of the trident, or three-pronged spear, gave the finishing touch to the vanquished foe. The Spider works in the same way, with this advantage, that she can renew her armful of fetters. If the first is not enough, a second instantly follows, and another and yet another until she has used up all her silk. When all movement ceases under the snowy winding-sheet, the Spider goes up to her bound prisoner. She has a better weapon than the gladiator’s three-pronged spear: she has her poison-fangs. She gnaws at the Locust. When she has finished, she flings the clean-bled remains out of the net and returns to her waiting-place in the centre of the web. [Illustration] THE NEST The Spiders show their great talents even better in the business of motherhood than in their hunting. The silk bag, the nest, in which the Banded Spider houses her eggs, is a much greater marvel than the bird’s nest. In shape it is a balloon turned upside down, 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 nest to the near-by twigs. The whole, a graceful egg-shaped object, hangs straight down among a few threads that steady it. The top of the Spider’s nest is hollowed into a bowl closed with a silky padding. Covering all the rest of the nest is a wrapper of thick, compact white satin, adorned with ribbons and patterns of brown and even black silk. We know at once the use of this satin wrapper; it is a waterproof cover which neither dew nor rain can penetrate. The Spider’s nest, down among the dead grasses, close to the ground, must 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. This is a comforter, a quilt, for the Spider’s babies, softer than any swan’s down and warm as toast. In the middle of this quilt 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 holds the Spider’s eggs, pretty little orange-colored beads, which, glued together, form a little globe the size of a pea. These are the treasures which must be guarded against the weather. When the Spider is making her pouch she moves slowly round and round, paying out a single thread. The hind-legs draw it out and place it in position on that which is already done. Thus is formed the satin bag. Guy-ropes bind it to the nearest threads and keep it stretched, especially at the mouth. The bag is just large enough to hold all the eggs, without any room left over. When the Spider has laid her eggs, she begins to work her spinneret once more, but in a different manner. Her body sinks and touches a point, goes back, sinks again and touches another point, first here, then there, making confused zigzags. At the same time, the hind-legs tread the material given out. The result is not a woven cloth, but a sort of felt, a blanketing. To make the eider-down quilt, she turns out reddish-brown silk, finer than the other and coming out in clouds which she beats into a sort of froth with her hind-legs. The egg-pocket disappears, drowned in this exquisite wadding. [Illustration] Again she changes her material, making the white silk of the outer wrapper. Already the bag has taken its balloon shape, tapering towards the neck. She now decorates the nest with brown markings, making for this purpose still a different kind of silk, varying in color from russet to black. When this is done, the work is finished. What a wonderful silk-factory the Spider runs! With a very simple and never-varying plant, consisting of her own hind-legs and spinnerets, she produces, by turns, rope-maker’s, spinner’s, weaver’s, ribbon-maker’s and felt-maker’s work. How does she do it? How can she obtain, as she wishes, skeins of different colors 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. When the Spider has finished her nest, she moves away with slow strides, without giving a glance at the bag. The rest does not interest her: time and the sun will hatch the eggs. By weaving the house for her children she has used up all her silk. If she returned to her web now, she would not have any with which to bind her prey. Besides, she no longer has any appetite. Withered and languid, she drags out her existence for a few days and, at last, dies. This is how things happen when I keep the Spiders in my cages; this is how they must happen in the brushwood. THE BANDED SPIDER’S FAMILY The pretty orange-yellow eggs of the Banded Spider number above five hundred. They are inclosed, you will remember, in a white-satin nest, in which there is no opening of any kind. How will the little Spiders get out, when their time comes and their mother is not there to help them? The animal and vegetable kingdoms are sometimes very much alike. The Spider’s nest seems to me like an animal fruit, which holds eggs instead of seeds. Now seeds have all sorts of ways of scattering. 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. You all know the jewel-weeds, or touch-me-nots, along the wayside, whose seed pods explode when you touch them. Then there are light seeds, like the dandelion, which have tufts or plumes to carry them away. The “keys” of the elm are formed of a broad, light fan with the seed cased in the center; those of the maple are joined in pairs and are like 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 has ways of shooting its large families out into the world. You will notice this in the case of many Spiders, and particularly this Banded Spider. As March comes on the Spiders begin to hatch out inside the nest. If we cut it open with the scissors we shall find some scattered over the eider-down outside the center room, and some still in the orange eggs. The little Spiders have not got their beautiful banded dresses yet; they are pale yellow on top, with black-rimmed eyes, and white and brown underneath. They stay in the outer room of the nest for four months, during which time their bodies harden and they grow mature. When June and July come, they are anxious to be off, but they cannot make a hole in the tough fabric of the nest. Never mind, the nest will open of itself, like a ripe seed-pod. Some day, when the sun is very hot, the satin bursts. Some of the Spiderlings, all mixed up with their flossy mattress, shoot out of the balloon. They are in frantic commotion. Others stay inside the nest and come out in their own good time. But as they come out, all of them climb up the near-by twigs and send out little threads which float, break, and fly away, carrying the tiny Spiders with them. You shall hear more about these flying machines of the young Spiders in the next chapters. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX THE TARANTULA The Spider has a bad name: most of us think her a horrid animal, and hasten to crush her under our feet. Nevertheless, any one who observes her knows that she is a hard worker, a talented weaver, a wily huntress, and very interesting in other ways. 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 main reason why we hate her. She _is_ poisonous, in a way, if by that we understand that the animal is armed with two fangs which cause the immediate death of the little victims that she catches; but there is a great difference between killing a Midge and harming a Man. However quickly the Spider’s poison kills insects, it is not as a rule serious for us and causes less trouble than a gnat-bite. That, at least, is what we can safely say about the great majority of Spiders. Nevertheless, a few are to be feared. The Italians say that the Tarantula produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by her. Music is the only cure for this, and they tell us some tunes are better than others. The tarantella, a lively dance, probably owes its name to this idea of the Italian peasants. The story makes us feel like laughing, but, after all, the bite of the Tarantula may possibly bring on some nervous trouble which music will relieve; and possibly a very energetic dance makes the patient break out into a perspiration and so get rid of the poison. The most powerful Spider in my neighborhood, the Black-bellied Tarantula, will presently show us what her poison can do. But first I will introduce her to you in her home, and tell you about her hunting. This Tarantula is dressed in black velvet on the lower surface, with brown stripes on the abdomen and gray and white rings around the legs. Her favorite dwelling-place is the dry, pebbly ground, covered with sun-scorched thyme. In my plot of waste ground, there are quite twenty of these Spiders’ burrows. I hardly ever 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 other eyes, which are much smaller, are not visible at that depth. The Tarantula’s dwellings are pits about a foot deep, dug by herself with her fangs, going straight down at first and then bent elbow-wise. They are about an inch wide. On the edge of the hole stands a curb, 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 the Spider’s silk. Sometimes this curb, or little tower, is an inch high; sometimes it is a mere rim. I wished to catch some of these Spiders, so I waved a spikelet of grass at the entrance of the burrow to imitate the humming of a Bee. I expected that the Tarantula would rush out, thinking she heard a prey. My scheme did not succeed. The Tarantula, indeed, came a little way up her tube to find out the meaning of the sounds at her door; but she soon scented a trap; she remained motionless at mid-height and would not come any farther. I found that the best method to secure the wily Tarantula was to 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 turned the apparatus thus baited over the opening. The powerful Bee at first fluttered and hummed about her glass prison; then, seeing a burrow like that made by her own family, she went into it without much hesitation. She was very foolish: while she went down, the Spider came up; and the meeting took place in the perpendicular passage. For a few moments, I heard a sort of death-song: it was the humming of the poor Bumble-bee. This was followed by a long silence. I removed the bottle and explored the pit with a pair of pincers. I brought out the Bumble-bee, motionless, dead. A terrible tragedy must have happened. The Spider followed, refusing to let go so rich a booty. Game and huntress were brought outside the hole, which I stopped up with a pebble. Outside her own house the Tarantula is timid and hardly able to run away. To push her with a straw into a paper bag was the work of a second. Soon I had a colony of Tarantulas in my laboratory. [Illustration] I did not give the Tarantula the Bee merely in order to capture her. I wished to know also her manner of hunting. I knew that she is one of those insects who live from day to day on what they kill. She does not store up preserved food for her children, like the Beetles; she is not a “paralyzer,” like the Wasps you have read about, who cleverly spare their game 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. I wished to find out how she kills them so quickly. She does not go in for peaceable game. The big Grasshopper, with the powerful jaws, the Bee and other wearers of poisoned daggers must fall into her hole from time to time, and the duel she fights with them is nearly equal as far as weapons go. For the poisonous fangs of the Spider the Wasp has her poisoned dagger or sting. Which of the two bandits shall have the best of it? The Tarantula has no second means of defense, no cord to bind her victim, as the Garden Spiders have. These cover the captives with their silk, making all resistance impossible. The Tarantula has a riskier job. She has only her courage and her fangs, and she must leap upon her dangerous prey and kill it quickly. She must know exactly where to strike, for, strong though her poison is, I cannot believe it would kill the prey instantly at any point where she happens to bite. She must bite in some spot of vital importance. [Illustration] A FIGHT WITH A CARPENTER-BEE Instead of with the Bumble-bee, who enters the Spider’s burrow, I wish to make the Tarantula fight with some other insect, who will stay above ground. For this purpose I take one of the largest and most powerful Bees that I can find, the Carpenter-bee, clad in black velvet, with wings of purple gauze. She is nearly an inch long; her sting is very painful and produces a swelling that hurts for a long time. I know, because I have been stung. Here indeed is a foe worthy of the Tarantula. I catch several Carpenter-bees, place them one by one in bottles, and choose a strong, bold Tarantula, one moreover who appears to be very hungry. I put the bottle baited with a Carpenter-bee upside down over her door. The Bee buzzes gravely in her glass bell; the Spider comes up from the recesses of her cave; she is on the threshold, but inside; she looks; she waits. I also wait. The quarters, the half-hours pass; nothing happens. The Spider goes down again: she probably thought the attempt too dangerous. I try in this way three more Tarantulas, but cannot make them leave their lairs. At last I have better success. A Spider suddenly rushes from her hole: she is unusually warlike, doubtless because she is very hungry. She attacks the Bee in the bottle, and the combat lasts for but the twinkling of an eye. The sturdy Carpenter-bee is dead. Where did the murderess strike her? Right in the nape of the neck; her fangs are still there. She has the knowledge which I suspected: she has bitten the only point she could bite to produce sudden death. She has struck the center of the victim’s nervous system. I make more experiments and find that it is only once in a while that the Tarantula will come out to fight the Carpenter-bee, but each time that she does so she kills it in the same way. The reason of the Tarantula’s hesitation is plain. An insect of this kind cannot be seized recklessly: the Tarantula who missed her strike by biting at random would do so at the risk of her life. Stung in any other place, the Bee might live for hours and manage to sting her foe with her poisoned dagger. The Spider is well aware of this. In the safe shelter of her threshold she watches for the right moment; she waits for the big Bee to face her, when the neck is easily grabbed. [Illustration] THE TARANTULA’S POISON The Tarantula’s poison is a pretty dangerous weapon, 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 leg. Aside 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 and intention of us all. Twelve hours later, we are still more hopeful; the invalid takes nourishment readily; he clamors for it, if we keep him waiting. Two days after, he refuses his food. Wrapping himself stoically in 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 tells us that all is over. The bird is dead. There is a certain coolness among us at the evening meal. I read silent reproaches, because of my experiment, in the eyes of the home-circle; I know they think me cruel. The death of the unfortunate Sparrow has saddened the whole family. I myself feel remorseful: what I have found out seems to me too dearly bought. Nevertheless, I had the courage to try again with a Mole who was caught stealing from our lettuce-beds. I put him in a cage and fed him on a varied diet of insects—Beetles and Grasshoppers. He crunched them up with a fine appetite. Twenty-four hours of this life convinced me that the Mole was making the best of the bill of fare and taking kindly to his captivity. I made the Tarantula bite him at the tip of the snout. When put back in his cage, the Mole kept on scratching his nose with his broad paws. The thing seemed to burn, to itch. From now on, he ate less and less of the store of insects: on the evening of the following day, he refused them altogether. About thirty-six hours after being bitten, the Mole died during the night, and certainly not from starvation, for there were still many live insects in the cage. The bite of my Tarantula is therefore dangerous to other animals than insects: it is fatal to the Sparrow, it is fatal to the Mole. I did not make any more experiments, but I should say that people had better beware of the bite of this Spider. It is not to be trifled with. Think, just for a moment, of the skill of the Spider, the insect-killer, as contrasted with the skill of the Wasps, the insect-paralyzers. These insect-killers, who live on their prey, strike the game dead at once by stinging the nerve-centers of the neck; the paralyzers, on the other hand, who wish to keep the food fresh for their larvæ, destroy the power of movement by stinging the game in the other nerve-centers, lower down. They do not acquire this knowledge, they have it as soon as they are born. And they teach those of us who think that there is something behind it all, that there is Some One who has planned things for insects and men alike. THE TARANTULA’S HUNTING From the Tarantulas whom I have captured and placed in pans filled with earth in my laboratory, I learn still more about their hunting. They are really magnificent, these captives. With their great bodies inside their burrows, their heads outside, their glassy eyes staring, their legs gathered for a spring, for hours and hours they wait, motionless, bathing luxuriously in the sun. Should a titbit to her liking happen to pass, at once the watcher darts from her tall tower, swift as an arrow from the bow. With a dagger-thrust in the neck, she stabs the Locust, Dragon-fly, or other prey; and she as quickly climbs her tower and retires with her capture. The performance is a wonderful exhibition of skill and speed. She very seldom misses the game, provided that it pass at a convenient distance, within reach of her bound. But if it be farther away she takes no notice of it. Scorning to go in pursuit, she allows it to roam at will. This proves that the Tarantula has great patience, for the burrow has nothing that can serve to attract victims. At best, refuge provided by the tower may, once in a long while, tempt some weary wayfaring insect to use it as a resting-place. But, if the game does not come to-day, it is sure to come to-morrow, the next day, or later, for there are many Locusts hopping in the waste land, and they are not always able to regulate their leaps. Some day or other, chance is bound to bring one of them near the burrow. Then the Spider springs upon the victim from the ramparts. Until then, she stoically watches and fasts. She will dine when she can; but she will finally dine. The Tarantula really does not suffer much from a long fast. She has an accommodating stomach, which is satisfied to be gorged to-day and to remain empty afterwards for goodness knows how long. When I had the Spiders in my laboratory, I sometimes neglected to feed them for weeks at a time, and they were none the worse for it. After they have fasted a long time, they do not pine away, but are smitten with a wolf-like hunger. In her youth, before she has a burrow, the Tarantula earns her living in another manner. Clad in gray like her elders, but without the black-velvet apron which she receives on reaching the marriageable age, she roams among the stubby grass. This is true hunting. When the right kind of game heaves in sight, the Spider pursues it, drives it from its shelters, follows it hot-foot. The fugitive gains the heights, and makes as though to fly away. He has not the time. With an upward leap, the Tarantula grabs him before he can rise. I am charmed with the quick way in which my year-old Spider boarders seize the Flies that 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 her prey. No Cat is quicker in catching her Mouse. But these are the feats of youth not handicapped by fatness. Later, when the bag of eggs has to be trailed along, the Tarantula cannot indulge in gymnastics. She then digs herself her hunting-lodge, and sits in her watch-tower, on the lookout for game. [Illustration] THE TARANTULA’S BAG You will be surprised to hear how devoted this terrible Tarantula is to her family. Early one morning in August, I found a Tarantula spinning on the ground a silk network covering an extent about as large as the palm of one’s hand. It was coarse and shapeless, but firmly fixed. This is the floor on which the Spider means to work. It will protect her nest from the sand. On this floor she weaves a round mat, about the size of a fifty-cent piece and made of superb white silk. She thickens the outer part of it, until it becomes a sort of bowl, surrounded by a wide, flat edge. Upon this bowl she lays her eggs. These she covers with silk. The result is a pill set in the middle of a circular carpet. With her legs she takes up and breaks off one by one the threads that keep the round mat stretched on the coarse floor. At the same time, she grips this sheet with her fangs, lifts it by degrees, tears it from its base, and folds it over upon the globe of eggs. It is hard work. The whole thing totters, the floor collapses, heavy with sand. The Tarantula, by a movement of her legs, casts these soiled shreds aside. She pulls with her fangs and sweeps with her broom-like legs, till she has pulled away her bag of eggs. It is like a white-silk pill, soft and sticky to the touch, as big as an average cherry. If you look closely, you will notice, running horizontally around the middle, a fold which a needle is able to raise without breaking it. This is the edge of the circular mat, drawn over the lower half of the bag. The upper half, through which the young Tarantulas will go out, is less well protected: its only wrapper is the silk spun over the eggs immediately after they were laid. Inside, there is nothing but the eggs: no mattress, no soft eider down, like that of the Banded Spider. This Tarantula has no need to guard her eggs against the weather, for the hatching will take place long before the cold weather comes. The mother has been busy the whole morning over her bag. Now she is tired. She embraces her dear pill and remains motionless. I shall see her no more to-day. Next morning I find the Spider carrying her bag of eggs slung behind her. For three weeks and more the Tarantula trails the bag of eggs hanging to her spinnerets. When she comes up from her shaft to lean upon the curb and bask in the sun, when she suddenly retires underground in the face of danger, and when she is roaming the country before settling down, she never lets go her precious bag, though it is a very inconvenient 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 the person who would take it from her. She restores the pill to its place with a quick touch of her spinnerets, and strides off, still threatening. Towards the end of summer, every morning, as soon as the sun is hot, the Tarantulas come up from the bottom of their burrows with their bags and station themselves at the opening. Earlier in the season they have taken long naps on the threshold in the sun in the middle of the day; but now they ascend for a different reason. Before, the Tarantula 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 back half inside. Her eyes took their fill of light; the body remained in the dark. When carrying her egg-bag the Spider reverses her position: 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 re-turns it, so as to present every side to the life-giving rays of the sun. And this goes on for half the day, as long as the temperature is high; and it is repeated daily, with exquisite patience, during three or four weeks. To hatch its eggs, the bird covers them with the quilt of its breast; it strains them to the furnace of its heart. The Tarantula turns hers in front of the hearth of hearths: she gives them the sun as an incubator. [Illustration] THE TARANTULA’S BABIES 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 have read of this fold. Does the mother, feeling the brood quicken inside the satin wrapper, herself break open the vessel at the right moment? It seems probable. On the other hand, it may burst of itself, as does the Banded Spider’s balloon, a tough wallet which opens a breach of its own accord, long after the mother has ceased to exist. As they come out of the pill, the little Tarantulas, to the number of about a couple of hundred, clamber on the mother Tarantula’s back and there sit motionless, jammed close together, forming a sort of bark of mingled legs and bodies. The mother cannot be recognized under this live cloak. 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 neighbor’s 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 opening, in mild weather, to bask in the sun, the Tarantula never throws off her greatcoat 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, destroyed the curb at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigor, still carrying her family. This upbringing of her youngsters on her back lasts five or six months at least, without interruption. The celebrated American carrier, the Opossum, who lets her children go after a few weeks’ carting, cuts a poor figure beside the Tarantula. [Illustration: “Does she help them to regain their place on her back?”] What do the little ones eat on their mother’s spine? Nothing, so far as I know. I do not see them grow larger. I find them, when they finally leave to shift for themselves, just as they were when they left the bag. During the bad season, the mother herself eats very little. 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 she is 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 cloak of youngsters. The expedition has its dangers. The little Spiders 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 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 Tarantula hardly troubles, whether one youngster fall from his place, or six, or all of them. She waits quietly 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 mother. After trotting about a little on the sand, the dislodged youngsters find, these here, those there, one or another of the mother’s legs, spread wide in a circle. By means of these climbing-poles they swarm to the top, and soon the group on the mother’s back resumes its original form. Not one of the lot is missing. The Tarantula’s sons know their trade as acrobats to perfection: the mother need not trouble her head about their fall. [Illustration] A MEAL OF SUNSHINE Does the Tarantula at least feed the youngsters who, for seven months, swarm upon her back? Does she invite them to the party when she has captured a prize? I thought so at first; and I gave special attention to watching the mothers eat. Usually, the prey is devoured out of sight, in the burrow; but sometimes a meal is taken on the threshold, in the open air. Well, I see then that while the mother eats, the youngsters do not budge from their camping ground on her back. Not one quits its place or gives a sign of wishing to slip down and join in the meal. Nor does the mother invite them to come and refresh themselves, or put any left-over food aside for them. She feeds and the others look on, or rather remain indifferent to what is happening. Their perfect quiet during the Tarantula’s feast is a proof that they are not hungry. Then what do they live upon, during their seven months’ upbringing on the mother’s back? One thinks of their absorbing nourishment from their mother’s skin. We must give up this notion. Never are they seen to put their mouths to it. And the Tarantula, far from being exhausted and shriveling, keeps perfectly well and plump; she even puts on flesh. Once more, with what do the little ones keep up their strength? We do not like to suggest that they are still living on the food they received in the egg, especially when we consider that they must use the energy drawn from this food to produce 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. We could understand their not needing anything to eat if they did not move; complete quiet is not life. But the young Spiders, although usually quiet on their mother’s back, are at all times ready for exercise and for agile swarming. When they fall from the mother’s baby-carriage, 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; they have to stretch and stiffen their little limbs in order to hang on to their neighbors. As a matter of fact, there is no absolute rest for them. Now physiology teaches us that not a muscle works without using up energy. The animal is like a machine; it must renew its body, which wears out with movement, and it must have something to make heat, which is turned into action. We can compare it with the locomotive-engine. As the iron horse does 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 foundry-man and the blacksmith repair it, supply it with new parts; it is as if they were giving it food to renew itself. But, although it be brand-new, it cannot move until the stoker shovels some coal into its inside and sets fire to it. This coal is like energy-producing food; it makes the engine work. Things are just the same with the animal. Since nothing is made from nothing, the little new-born animal is made from the food there was in the egg. This is tissue-forming food which increases the body, up to a certain point, and renews it as it wears away. But it must have heat-food, or energy-food, too. Then the animal will walk, run, jump, swim, fly, or move in any one of a thousand manners. To return to the young Spiders: they grow no larger until after they leave their mother. At the age of seven months they are the same as at birth. The egg supplied the food necessary for their tiny frames; and they do not need more tissue-forming food as long as they do not grow. This we can understand. But where do they get the energy-food that makes them able to move about so actively? Here is an idea. What is coal, the energy-food of the locomotive? It is the fossil remains of trees which, ages ago, drank the sunlight with their leaves. Coal is really stored-up sunlight and the locomotive, devouring it, is devouring sunlight. Beasts of flesh and blood act no otherwise. Whether they eat one another or plants, they always live on 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 giver of energy. Instead of being served up in food and being digested through the stomach, could not this sun-energy enter the animal directly and charge it with activity, just as the electric battery charges an accumulator with power? Why not live on sun, seeing that, after all, we find nothing but sun in the fruits which we eat? The chemists say they are going to feed us some day on artificial food-stuffs put up in drug-stores. Perhaps the laboratory and the factory will take the place of the farm. Why should not physical science do as well? It would leave to the chemist the preparation of tissue-forming food; it would give us energy-food. With the help of some ingenious apparatus, it would pump into us our daily supply of sun-energy, to be later spent in movement, so that we could keep going without eating at all. What a delightful world, where one would lunch off a ray of sunshine! Are we dreaming, or will something like this happen some day? It is worth while surely for the scientists to think about it. [Illustration] THE FLIGHT OF THE BABY TARANTULAS As the month of March comes to an end, the mother Tarantula is outside her burrow, squatting on the parapet at the entrance. It is time for the youngsters to leave her. She lets them do as they please, seeming perfectly indifferent to what is happening. The departure begins during glorious weather, in the hottest hours of the morning. First these, then those, of the little ones, according as they feel themselves soaked with sunshine, leave the mother in batches, run about for a moment on the ground, and then quickly reach the trellis-work of the cage in my laboratory, which they climb with surprising quickness. They all make for the heights, though their mother is accustomed to stay on the solid ground. There is an upright ring at the top of the cage. The youngsters hurry to it. 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. The tiny legs open out from time to time as though to reach the most distant points. I begin to realize that they wish to go higher. I top the trellis with a branch as high again. The little Spiders hastily scramble up it, reach the tip of the topmost twigs and from there send out threads that fasten themselves to every surrounding object. These are suspension-bridges; and my beasties nimbly run along them, incessantly passing to and fro. They seem to wish to climb still higher. I take a nine-foot reed, with tiny branches spreading right up to the top, and place it above the cage. The little Tarantulas clamber to the very summit. Here they send out longer threads, which are left to float, and which again form bridges when their loose ends touch some object. The rope-dancers embark upon them and form garlands which the least breath of air swings daintily. One cannot see the threads at all unless they come between the eyes and the sun; the Spiders look as if they were dancing in the air. Then, suddenly, shaken by the air-currents, the delicate mooring breaks and flies through space. Behold the little Spiders fly off and away, hanging to their threads! If the wind be favorable, they can land at great distances. The bands of little Spiders keep on leaving thus for a week or two, if the weather is fine. On cloudy days, none dreams of going. The travelers need the kisses of the sun, which give them energy and vigor. At last, the whole family has disappeared, carried afar by its flying-ropes. The mother is alone. The loss of her children hardly seems to distress her. She goes on with her hunting with greater energy, now that she is not hampered with her coat of little ones. She will have other families, become a grandmother and a great-grandmother, for the Tarantulas live several years. In this species of Tarantula, as we have seen, a sudden instinct arises in the young ones, to disappear, as promptly and forever, a few hours later. This is the climbing-instinct, which is unknown to the older Tarantula and soon forgotten by the young ones, who alight upon the ground and wander there for many a long day before they begin to build their burrows. Neither of them dreams of climbing to the top of a grass-stalk. Yet here we have the young Tarantula, wishing to leave her mother and to travel far away by the easiest and swiftest methods, suddenly becoming an enthusiastic climber. We know 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. She makes it in her hour of need, and when the journey is finished thinks no more about it. [Illustration] CHAPTER XX THE CLOTHO SPIDER Prettily shaped and clad, as far as a Spider can be, the Clotho Spider is, above all, a very clever spinstress. She is named after the Clotho of antiquity, the youngest of the Three Fates, who holds the distaff whence our destinies are spun. It is a pity that the Fate Clotho cannot spin as soft lives for us as the exquisite silk the Spider Clotho spins for herself! If we would make the acquaintance of the Clotho Spider we must go up the rocky slopes in the olive-land, scorched and blistered by the sun, turn over the flat stones, those of a fair size, search, above all, the piles which the shepherds set up for a seat from which to watch the sheep browsing amongst the lavender below. Do not be too easily disheartened if you do not find her at first. The Clotho is rare; not every spot suits her. If we are lucky, we shall see, clinging to the lower surface of the stone which we have lifted, a queer-looking thing, shaped like the dome of a building turned upside down, and about half the size of a tangerine orange. The outside is hung with small shells, bits of earth, and, especially, dried insects. [Illustration] The edge of the dome is scalloped into a dozen pointed scallops, the points of which spread and are fixed to the stone. A flat roof closes the top of the dwelling. Where is the entrance? All the arches of the edge open upon the roof; not one leads inside. Yet the owner of the house must go out from time to time, if only in search of food; on returning from her expedition, she must go in again. How does she make her exits and her entrances? A straw will tell us the secret. Pass it over the threshold of the various arches. It finds them all carefully closed, apparently. But one of the scallops, if cleverly coaxed, opens at the edge into two lips and stands slightly ajar. This is the door, which at once shuts again of its own elasticity. Nor is this all: the Spider, when she returns home, often bolts herself in; that is to say, she joins and fastens the two leaves of the door with a little silk. The Clotho, when in danger, runs quickly home; she opens the chink with a touch of her claw, enters and disappears. The door closes of itself and is supplied, in case of need, with a lock consisting of a few threads. No burglar, on the outside of so many arches, one and all alike, will ever discover under which one the fugitive vanished so suddenly.