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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. |
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