THE BIRD-DROPPING SPIDER, A CREATURE WITH PROTECTIVE COLORING
(Epeira verrucosa, Hentz)
This orb weaver had swung its net across a wood road, and so perfectly did the white patch on its back resemble a bird’s dropping that until my hand touched the net I failed to realize that a living thing was hanging there. There is something strangely fascinating about the compelling force of instinct: a spider hatched in captivity who has never seen a web made, will weave its own in the same delicate and intricate pattern that its mother made, using the different kinds of rope correctly, and spacing each strand with a mathematical precision. Indeed, the web of this untutored little spiderling will be as characteristic of its species as the white spot upon its back. It would be as though a child, cast alone on a desert island, should build a house in all details precisely like its ancestral home.
THE AERIAL TRAPPER: THE ORB-WEAVING SPIDER