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.
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.
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.
Let us open the Spider’s cabin. What luxury! We have read how the Princess in the fairy-tale was unable to rest, if there was a crumpled rose-leaf in her bed. The Clotho is quite as fastidious. Her couch is more delicate than swan’s-down and whiter than the fleece of clouds where brood the summer storms. It is the ideal blanket. Above is a canopy or tester of equal softness. Between the two nestles the Spider, short-legged, clad in somber garments, with five yellow favors on her back.
Rest in this exquisite retreat demands that it be perfectly steady, especially on gusty days, when sharp draughts creep under the stone dwelling. By taking a careful look at her we can see how the Spider manages this. The arches that bear the weight of the building are fastened to the stone at each end. Moreover, where they touch, you may see a cluster of diverging threads that creep along the stone and cling to it throughout their length, which spreads afar. I have measured some that were fully nine feet long. These are so many cables; they are like the ropes and pegs that hold the Arab’s tent in position.
Another detail attracts our attention: whereas the inside of the house is exquisitely clean, the outside is covered with dirt, bits of earth, chips of rotten wood, little pieces of gravel. Often there are worse things still: hung up or embedded are the dry carcasses of Beetles that favor under-rock shelters; parts of Thousand-legged Worms, bleached by the sun; snail-shells, chosen from among the smallest.
These relics are plainly, for the most part, table-leavings, broken victuals. Unskilled in laying traps, the Clotho lives upon the insects who wander from one stone to another. Whoever ventures under the slab at night is strangled by the hostess; and the dried-up carcass, instead of being flung to a distance, is hung to the silken wall, as though the Spider wished to make a bogey-house of her home. But this cannot be her aim. To act like the ogre who hangs his victim from the castle battlements is the worst way to disarm suspicion in the passers-by whom you are lying in wait to capture.
There are other reasons which increase our doubts. The shells hung up are most often empty; but there are also some occupied by the Snail, alive and untouched. What can the Spider do with these snail-shells wherein the animal retreats so far that she cannot reach it? The Spider cannot break the hard shell or get at the hermit through the opening. Then why should she collect these prizes, whose slimy flesh is probably not to her taste? We begin to suspect a simple question of ballast and balance. The House Spider prevents her web, spun in a corner of the wall, from losing its shape at the least breath of air, by loading it with crumbling plaster and allowing tiny fragments of mortar to accumulate. The Clotho Spider dumps down on her abode any more or less heavy object, mainly corpses of insects, because she need not look for these and finds them ready to hand after each meal. They are weights, not trophies; they take the place of materials that must otherwise be collected from a distance and lifted to the top. In this way, a breastwork is obtained that strengthens and steadies the house. Further balance is often given by tiny shells and other objects hanging a long way down. The Clotho knows the laws of balancing; by means of additional weights, she is able to lower the center of gravity and thus to give her dwelling the proper equilibrium and roominess.
Now what does she do in her softly-wadded home? Nothing, that I know of. With a full stomach, her legs luxuriously stretched over the down carpet, she does nothing, thinks of nothing; she listens to the sound of the earth revolving on its axis. It is not sleep, still less is it waking; it is a middle state where the Spider is conscious of nothing except that she is happy. We ourselves, when comfortably in bed, enjoy, just before we fall asleep, a few moments of bliss, when we neither think nor worry; and those moments are among the sweetest in our lives. The Clotho Spider seems to know similar moments and to make the most of them.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SPIDER’S TELEGRAPH-WIRE
Of the six Garden Spiders I have noticed, two only, the Banded and the Silky Spiders, stay constantly in their webs, even under the blinding rays of a fierce sun. The others, as a rule, do not show themselves until nightfall. At some distance from the net they have a rough and ready retreat in the brambles, a hiding-place made of a few leaves held together by stretched threads. It is here that they usually remain in the daytime, motionless and sunk in meditation.
But the shrill light that vexes them is the joy of the fields. At such time, the Locust hops more nimbly than ever, more gayly skims the Dragon-fly. Besides, the sticky web, in spite of the rents suffered during the night, is still in fairly good condition. If some giddy-pated insect allow himself to be caught, will the Spider, at the distance whereto she has retired, be unable to take advantage of the windfall? Never fear. She arrives in a flash. How does she know what has happened? Let us explain the matter.
It is the vibration of the web which tells her, rather than the sight of the captured object. To prove this, I laid upon several Spiders’ webs a dead Locust. I placed the Locust where the Spider might have plainly seen it. Sometimes the Spider was in her web, and sometimes she was outside, in her hiding-place. In both cases, nothing happened at first. The Spider remained motionless, even when the Locust was at a short distance in front of her. She did not seem to see the game at all. Then, with a long straw, I set the dead insect trembling.
That was quite enough. The Banded Spider and the Silky Spider hastened to the central floor, the others, who were in hiding, came down from the branch; all went to the Locust, bound him with tape, treated him, in short, as they would treat a live prey captured under the usual conditions. It took the shaking of the web to decide them to attack.
If we look carefully behind the web of any Spider with a daytime hiding-place, we shall see a thread that starts from the center of the web and reaches the place where the Spider lurks. It is joined to the web at the central point only. Its length is usually about twenty-two inches, but the Angular Spider, settled high up in the trees, has shown me some as long as eight or nine feet.
“The slanting cord is a telegraph wire.”
This slanting line is a foot-bridge by which the Spider hurries to her web when there is something going on there, and then, when her errand is finished, returns to her hut. But that is not all it is. If it were, the foot-bridge would be fastened to the upper end of the web. The journey would then be shorter and the slope less steep.
The line starts from the center of the net because that is the place where the spokes meet and therefore where the vibration from any part of the net is best felt. Anything that moves upon the web sets it shaking. All then that is needed is a thread going from this central point to carry to a distance the news of a prey struggling in some part or other of the net. The slanting cord is not only a foot-bridge: it is a signaling-apparatus, a telegraph-wire.
In their youth, the Garden Spiders, who are then very wide-awake, know nothing of the art of telegraphy. Only the old Spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, are warned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the net.
To save herself from keeping a close watch that would be drudgery and to remain alive to events even when resting, with her back turned on the net, the hidden Spider always has her foot upon the telegraph-wire. Here is a true story to prove it.
An Angular Spider has spun her web between two laurestine-shrubs, covering a width of nearly a yard. The sun beats upon the snare, which is abandoned long before dawn. The Spider is in her day house, a resort easily discovered by following the telegraph-wire. It is a vaulted chamber of dead leaves, joined together with a few bits of silk. The refuge is deep: the Spider disappears in it entirely, all but her rounded hind-quarters, which bar the entrance.
With her front half plunged into the back of her hut, the Spider certainly cannot see her web; she could not even if she had good sight, instead of being half blind as she is. Does she give up hunting during this period of bright sunlight? Not at all. Look again.
Wonderful! One of her hind-legs is stretched outside the leafy cabin; and the signaling-thread ends just at the tip of that leg. Whoever has not seen the Spider in this attitude, with her hand, so to speak, on the telegraph-receiver, knows nothing of one of the most curious examples of animal cleverness. Let any game appear upon the scene, and the slumberer, at once aroused by means of the leg receiving the vibrations, hastens up. A Locust whom I myself lay on the web gives her this agreeable shock, and what follows? If she is satisfied with her prey, I am still more satisfied with what I have learned.
One word more. The web is often shaken by the wind. The signaling-cord must pass this vibration to the Spider. Nevertheless, she does not leave her hut and remains indifferent to the commotion prevailing in the net. Her line, therefore, is something better than a bell-rope; it is a telephone capable, like our own, of transmitting infinitesimal waves of sound. Clutching her telephone-wire with a toe, the Spider listens with her leg; she can tell the difference between the vibration proceeding from a prisoner and the mere shaking caused by the wind.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CRAB-SPIDER
The Banded Spider, who works so hard to give her eggs a wonderfully perfect dwelling-house, becomes, after that, careless of her family. For what reasons? She lacks the time. She has to die when the first cold comes, whereas the eggs are to pass the winter in their cozy home. She cannot help deserting the nest. But, if the hatching were earlier and took place in the Spider’s life, I imagine that she would be as devoted to her family as a Bird is. So I gather from the behavior of a shapely Spider who weaves no webs, lies in wait for her prey, and walks sideways, like a Crab.
This Spider with the Crab-like figure does not know how to make nets for catching game. Without springs or snares, she lies hidden among the flowers, and waits for the arrival of the prey, which she kills by a scientific stab in the neck. The particular species I have observed is passionately fond of the pursuit of the Domestic Bee.
The Bee appears, seeking no quarrel, intent upon plunder. She tests the flowers with her tongue; she chooses 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 Crab-spider, that bandit lurking under cover of the flowers, comes out of 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 paralyzing, because the nerve-centers are affected. The poor thing’s legs stiffen; and all is over in a second. The murderess Spider now sucks the victim’s blood at her ease and, when she has done, scornfully flings the drained corpse aside.
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 hunger, we are all of us, beasts and men alike, ogres.
After all, this cutter of Bees’ throats is a pretty, a very pretty creature, in spite of her unwieldy body 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 backs with crimson patterns. A narrow, pale-green ribbon sometimes edges the right and left of the breast. The costume is not so rich as that of the Banded Spider, but much more elegant because of its soberness, its daintiness, and the artistic blending of its colors. People who shrink from touching any other Spider do not fear to handle the beautiful Crab Spider, so gentle in appearance.
