PART III.
THE PERSEVERING SPIDER.
Can any pleasant moral lesson be learned from the spider? I fancy some of our readers asking—the spider, whom many regard as the most treacherous, cruel, and unrelenting of those creatures who lie in wait for prey? By the song "Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly," in the nursery, several generations of children have been early prejudiced against this useful and most intelligent insect.
When they are a little older, it is true, the spider is held up to them as a wonderful example of perseverance in that story of King Robert the Bruce, who, when he was banished from his country, lying in concealment in a miserable hovel, and considering whether it would not be well to give up the struggle to secure his own, and with it restore freedom to his country, was attracted by the sight of a spider hanging at the end of a thread and trying to swing from one part of the cabin roof to another in order there to fix its line. Six times whilst the King watched it attempted to do this and failed. The Bruce remembered then that he also had made just six attempts—that is, fought six battles with his enemies, and without success. "Now," thought he, "if that spider tries a seventh time and succeeds, I will take it as a good omen for myself, and will also try my fortune a seventh time." The spider reached the beam, and Bruce went forth to victory after victory.
The disgust aroused by the spider is by no means a just one, and the fear some people have of these insects is most unreasonable and absurd. In tropical countries the bites of some are dangerous, but not nearly so much so as is supposed. Our own spiders are harmless enough. I never destroy the webs they make in my garden, the circular nets which they stretch from one branch to another, which are considered by experts to show a perfection of weaving, whilst those webs which are woven in odd corners of our dwellings reveal an intelligence in their arrangement which is perfectly marvellous. I heard a clever man say lately that spiders were the greatest engineers in the world.
In some corner of your room you may study the horizontal net, covered with dust, perhaps, which is the base of the structure. Irregularly-crossed threads above this cause the prey to become entangled, and its end is inevitable. Most ingenious is the den in which the hunter is hidden in waiting. It consists of a circular tunnel with a double outlet. One of these, being horizontal, opens on to the web. The other is vertical, with a passage below, which serves as a trapdoor, whilst from the former the spider darts out on his prey. As soon as a fly has been destroyed—its blood sucked—it is seized by its captor and dragged to the tunnel to be thrown out at the trapdoor. This is no doubt lest the débris should alarm other flies. The hunter can also escape itself, when necessary, by this exit. This does not often happen, perhaps, and the main use of the trapdoor, says M. Pouchet, an interesting French naturalist, is to get rid of the remains of the spider's repasts.
"The poison apparatus of spiders," says the same author, "is precisely analogous to that of serpents, only it is of microscopic size. It possesses mobile teeth, hollow fangs which distil the poison into the wound, and this is secreted by a peculiar gland situated in the interior of the palpi attached to the under jaws which effect the bite. In the large tropical species this lethal fluid is so active that it kills in an instant animals of a far superior size, and is often employed against the birds which the spiders seize on the trees." The so-called Bird-eating Spider attacks the lovely humming-birds. It is called the Great Spider in South America, and its cocoon is three inches long and one broad.
Thinking of the creatures of prey and their quarry is always a painful subject. Yet we know surely that the all-wise Creator would not order the balance of nature to be kept up in this way if it involved cruelty. There is cruelty in some of the methods of vivisection—in the horrible way, for instance, in which one French scientist at least has studied and tested by torture how far a poor loving mother dog will bear being maimed, before it can be induced to leave its offspring. And there is a brutality, as demoralising to the men who have to carry out their master's orders in felling oxen for the market, as it is torturing to the poor beasts. Nature's methods of killing are, as a rule, mercifully rapid. It seems to be a part of the Creator's plan that some of His creatures should live on the rest, and "some," says a thoughtful writer on God's providence, "have suggested that such a state of things implies a reflection upon the Divine goodness, ... but by the means now specified some classes of animals are held in check which would otherwise so multiply as to become an intolerable nuisance."
And so we consider with complacence the fact that the cat kills the mouse, the owl catches up the field vole and the beetle; the swallow rids the air of insect pests which would render life intolerable, the ladybird lives on the aphides that devour our plants—those fat green insects which destroy our roses and honeysuckle.
The spider does his own appointed work in a way which shows astute intelligence. Death is the common lot, and most of the creatures preyed on pass swiftly away in the full height of enjoyment without lingering sickness or decay. I have known a spider's web put to a very odd purpose by a lady I knew well in New Zealand, a very successful poultry rearer. When her chickens had "the pip," she declared that she cured them by a buttered pill consisting of spiders' webs. And I have known also Chinamen give dying men, as a last remedy, a tiny chicken pounded up in a mortar, bones, feathers, and all, and welded into a huge pill. They declared that it often cured when all else had failed. But this is a digression.
To return to our spiders. Besides the geometric spiders (sic) we have the gossamer spiders, little creatures that make floating webs in the air and on the ground in the autumn. These avail themselves cleverly of the currents of air in attaching their lines, raising their arms to test the direction of the light winds. Her webs are often destroyed by rain or wind, or broken by some large creature like a bee or a wasp getting entangled in one; but the patient worker is not so discouraged as to give up. She patiently fasts, until the damage is repaired. And spiders seem to be weather prophets, for it has been stated that when it threatens to become wet and stormy, the outdoor spider will make the threads which support its net short, but if they expect finer, settled weather, these will be long. As is the case with ants, some species are more provident than others, and one has been described which suspended its prey in the meshes above and below the centre of the net, having quite a well-stocked larder. In the Fen countries a raft of a ball of weeds, held together by slight silken threads or cords, is often observed, on which the spider floats down a stream in quest of drowning insects.
The "Mason Spider's" home consists of a hole several inches deep in the ground, and perfectly cylindrical. It is lined with hangings. The one nearest the rough sides is thick, and carelessly woven. Over this, like a skilful decorator, he places a hanging of fine silk, carefully wrought. The door or lid of this dwelling is furnished with a cushion of silk inside, whilst above it is made of the same material as the soil, so that when the master is at home there is nothing to reveal that fact, his door being closed. Layers of earth and silk compose the lid.
Kate Dalrymple, as the old Scottish ballad tells us, was "Aye eident and thrifty." Eident is a rare word, expressive of great perseverance and application. "To be called eident and thrifty" was the greatest commendation to the good graces of the desired mother-in-law. I am not sure, however, apart from this, that it is always a very desirable thing to be coveted as a wished-for daughter-in-law. A very shrewd friend of mine, a witty Scotchwoman, when young was told that the mother of one of her suitors was very anxious that she should marry him. "'Deed," said the girl, "I'd sooner marry a man whose mother was not so anxious to get him married." And she was quite right.
But to be persevering as well as brave, and to be gifted with physical energy and endurance, is a rare endowment for any woman. Mrs. Scott Gatty, in one of her stories, tells of a preacher who used to say, "Girls, be brave; boys, be pure." I used to hear this story many years before, as a child. It was told then of an old superintendent of a Sunday-school. He would say, "Boys, they bid you be brave and girls be pure; but I say, Girls be brave and boys be pure." Then the world would be far on in a better way than it is now.
"The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces," says the wise man in Proverbs xxx. 28. What a picture in a few simple words of the industry, courage and perseverance with which this little creature is gifted! and of the reward which would seem to be implied. Shall we seem to be straining the image if we allow our thoughts to be carried by this picture to the home of our heavenly King, where, as we are promised, our eyes shall see Him "in His beauty"? "To patient faith," says the hymn, "the prize is sure."
The spider, we might say, is essentially of an aspiring nature. She weaves her net high up in corners where the duster and broom of the busy housemaid will not easily reach her. She fasts long and is not drawn away from the spot where she expects to get the reward of her patience. Many of us can work hard and well by fits and starts, but we weary of sustained effort, and we are "found sleeping." Or like the pilgrims to the Celestial City we are tempted to stray and delight ourselves in flowery "Bypath meadows." Play, healthy recreation, we must have, but it must be such as helps us in the race of life and not such as weakens our purpose and hinders us from reaching the desired goal. I look back sometimes on the companions of my girlhood, and I must often acknowledge that certain boys and girls whom we were wont to reproach as being dull plodders, have beaten many of their fellows in the battle of life.
There is a species of spider which carries, attached to her body, a round, white, silky bag of eggs, just about as big as a pea. It is heavy, but nothing would induce the affectionate mother to part with it. The French naturalist, Bonnet, in order to test this love for her offspring, once threw such a mother spider into the hole of an ant-lion, in the sand where the great insect lay in hiding for its prey. The poor spider tried to run away but the ant-lion caught at the bag of eggs and tried to drag it under the sand. At last he succeeded in breaking the gluten by which her bag was attached to her. Instantly the spider seized this in her jaws and she struggled hard to bear it away. It was in vain however; her precious burden was dragged under. Then the poor mother might have escaped with her own life, but she preferred death to the loss of her offspring, and if the naturalist had not taken her out of the pit she would have been buried with them. She would not leave the spot however, although Bonnet tried to make her do so, by moving her with a little twig, over and over again. In reading this one cannot help wishing that she had not been so tortured. Some of our scientists, as I said before, have pushed their studies of moral qualities in the so-called brute world to a most unjustifiable extent, it would seem.
When the young of this affectionate mother are hatched, and they have got out of the bag where they were kept so safely, they attach themselves to her body. She carries them everywhere she goes and feeds them until they are able to fend for themselves.
Referring to persevering industry, we recall the pretty story of William Cobbett's courtship and marriage, as told by Dr. Smiles, from his "Life." Cobbett was a practical man, full of blunt common sense. When he first saw the girl who afterwards became his wife, she was only thirteen years of age, he being twenty-one, and at the time sergeant-major in a foot regiment stationed at St. John's in New Brunswick. Passing her father's door, on a cold winter's day, he saw the girl out in the snow, scrubbing a washing-tub. "That's the girl for me!" he cried, mentally, and he set about making her acquaintance. As soon as he could get discharged from the army, he determined that he would persuade her to become his wife. The girl returned to Woolwich with her father, who was also a sergeant-major, but in the artillery. The night before they left St. John's, her lover sent her a hundred and fifty guineas which he had saved, begging her to accept it, so that she might not be obliged to do any hard work until he also could return to England and marry her. She took the money, and it was five years before Cobbett obtained his discharge and was able to go to see the girl he loved. "I found," he said, "my little girl a servant of all work—and hard work it was—at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken." Soon afterwards they were married, and he delighted later in attributing to her "the comfort and much of the success of his after life." In his "Advice to young men" he drew from his wife his picture of a true and womanly helpmate, with "a vividness and brightness and, at the same time, a force of good sense that have never been surpassed by any English writer."
What Sarah Martin, who was left an orphan very young, and who as a woman went out dressmaking first at one shilling a day, was able to achieve in visiting and helping to reclaim poor prison women, and not only them but dissolute men and boys, loving, praying, and watching by them, you ought all to read fully. I think the story of her life was published by the Religious Tract Society. She gave six and seven hours to this work every day. For twenty years she did this without help or reward—her grandmother having left her ten or twelve pounds a year; the rest of her income coming from her hard work during part of each day as a dressmaker. At last the gaol committee told her that she must become their paid servant at twelve pounds a year or "be excluded from the prison." Although she shrank from this payment of her labours of love, she had to accept it, or give up her charge, and for two years she had that poor stipend until her health failed. She was in point of fact schoolmistress and chaplain and seamstress to the scum of Yarmouth. But what a reward was hers!
In my last paper I quoted Matthew Arnold's lines—
"Tasks in hours of insight willed
May be through hours of gloom fulfilled."
"Les beaux esprits se rencontrent," and it will perhaps interest some of you, as it has done myself, to hear that Professor Tyndall used to say of Professor Faraday that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution and in his cool ones he made that resolution good." We cannot all be active scientists or philanthropists, but let us end this little study by resolving that we will be less discouraged and hindered by difficulties in our own special work, or by the consideration of what we are apt to deem our unfitness for the appointed task, our own inadequacy, than we have hitherto been.
"With one hand work and with the other pray,
And God shall bless them both from day to day."
(To be continued.)
["OUR HERO."]
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of "Sun, Moon and Stars," "The Girl at the Dower House," etc.