THE YOUNG CRAB-SPIDERS
It is in July that some little Crab-spiders that I have in my laboratory come out of their eggs. Knowing their acrobatic habits, I have placed a bundle of slender twigs at the top of the cage in which they were born. All of them pass through the wire gauze and form a group on the summit of the brushwood, where they swiftly weave a roomy lounge of criss-cross threads. Here they stay, pretty quietly, for a day or two; then foot-bridges begin to be flung from one object to the next. This is the fortunate moment.
I put the bunch laden with beasties on a small table, in the shade, before the open window. Soon they begin to spin threads to carry them away, but slowly and unsteadily. They hesitate, go back, fall short at the end of a thread, climb up again. In short, much trouble for a poor result.
As matters continue to drag, it occurs to me, at eleven o’clock, to take the bundle of brushwood swarming with the little Spiders, all eager to be off, and place it on the window-sill, in the glare of the sun. After a few minutes of heat and light, things move much faster. The little Spiders run to the top of the twigs, bustle about actively. I cannot see them manufacturing the ropes or sending them floating at the mercy of the air; but I guess their presence.
Three or four Spiders start at a time, each going her own way. All are moving upwards, all are climbing some support, as can be told by the nimble motion of their legs. Moreover, you can see the thread behind them, where it is of double thickness. Then, at a certain height, individual movement ceases. The tiny animal soars in space and shines, lit up by the sun. Softly it sways, then suddenly takes flight.
What has happened? There is a slight breeze outside. The floating cable has snapped and the creature has gone off, borne on its parachute. I see it drifting away, showing, like a spot of light, against the dark foliage of the near cypresses, some forty feet distant. It rises higher, it crosses over the cypress-screen, it disappears. Others follow, some higher, some lower, hither and thither.
“Like the finish of a fireworks display.”
But the throng has finished its preparations; the hour has come to disperse in swarms. We now see, from the crest of the brushwood, a continuous spray of starters, who shoot up like tiny rockets and mount in a spreading cluster. In the end, it is like the bouquet at the finish of a fireworks display, the sheaf of rockets fired all at once. The comparison is correct down to the dazzling light itself. Flaming in the sun like so many gleaming points, the little Spiders are the sparks of that living fireworks. What a glorious send-off! What an entrance into the world!