Natural History / Or, Uncle Philip's Conversations with the Children about Tools and Trades among Inferior Animals

by Francis L. Hawks

"What, Uncle Philip! A spider make a door with a hinge and a spring to make it shut itself!"

"Yes, boys; a spider. Do you think he deserves to be killed for doing it?"

"Oh no, no! But pray tell us all about it. Uncle Philip."

"This kind of spider, then, boys, I saw in Jamaica, and I saw its house, too. It is called the mason-spider. The nest or house which I saw was a tube made of very hard clay, about six inches long, and an inch across, and was a little bent at one end. The inside of this tube was lined all the way through with a kind of soft silky stuff, something like silk-paper, but stronger, and it was of a yellowish colour; but the curious part was the door. I never saw any thing which an insect had made more strange than that. This door was round, about as large as a quarter of a dollar, and was a little hollowed on the upper side like a saucer; the inside of it was rounded like the outside of the saucer. It was of the same stuff with the lining of the nest, and seemed to be made of more than a dozen pieces of that lining, put one on the top of another: it was shaped so, too, that the inside layers or pieces were the broadest, and the outside ones became smaller and smaller, except at the hinge, which was about an inch long. All the pieces in the door were joined into this hinge, and then the hinge was joined and worked into the lining in the tube. That made the hinge the thickest and strongest part of the whole work. How the spider made it so, boys, I cannot tell; but so it was, that this hinge not only was a hinge, but was so good a spring, that whenever the door was opened it would shut itself immediately: and when shut, it fitted so nicely that it was very difficult to see the place of joining."

"Well, Uncle Philip, this is most wonderful! But will not the hinge wear out at last?"

"Wonderful as it is, boys, it is all true. As to its wearing out, I cannot tell you; but I know that a gentleman who had one, said that his friends were very anxious to see it; and there were so many of them, that he had to open the door and let it shut itself many hundreds of times to satisfy them; and it did not hurt the spring at all."

"Uncle Philip, we shall not kill the poor spiders any more."

"A good resolution, boys: only let them alone, and they will not hurt you. There is another kind of mason-spider, which I never saw, but I have read of it. It is found in the south of France; I did not happen, however, to meet with one while I was in that beautiful country. This kind digs a gallery or hole under ground as much as a foot deep. She lines it with a sort of silk glued to the walls, and makes her door, which is round also, with many layers of mud or earth all kneaded and bound together with some of her silk. On the outside, the door is flat and rough, to make it appear like the dirt around it, and hide it; on the inside it is shaped like the inside of the door of the other spider I have told you about; and all covered with a coat of fine silk. The threads of this silk are left long on one side, and fastened to the upper part of the hole; and these make the hinge. There is no spring to this; but when the spider pushes its door open and comes out, it shuts again by its own weight. If this door is forced open by any one when the spider is at home, she will catch hold of it and pull it in; and sometimes even when it is half-opened; she will snatch it out of the hand. Here is a picture which shows the nest open, and another of it shut; and there is a drawing of the spider, too.