These insects are but ill calculated to live in society. Whenever thus stationed, they never fail to wage war with each other. The females, in particular, are of a disposition peculiarly capricious and malignant; and it is observed, that they sometimes spring upon the males, and destroy them. On this occasion, says Linnæus, if ever, may be justly applied the Ovidian line:—
Res est solliciti plena timoris amor!
The following is a notable instance of the Ingenuity of the Spider. T. A. Knight, Esq. of Herefordshire, has, in a Treatise on the Culture of the Apple and Pear, introduced the following concerning this curious insect.—
“I have frequently placed a spider on a small upright stick, whose base was surrounded by water, to observe its most singular mode of escape. After having discovered that the ordinary means of escape are cut off, it ascends the point of the stick, and, standing nearly on its head, ejects its web, which the wind readily carries to some contiguous object. Along this, the sagacious insect effects its escape, not however till it has previously ascertained, by several exertions of its whole strength, that its web is properly attached to the opposite end. I do not know that this instance of sagacity has been mentioned by any entomological writer, and I insert it here in consequence of the erroneous accounts of some periodical publications, of the spider’s threads, which are observed to pass from one tree or bush to another in dewy mornings.”
The reader will be pleased with the following account of a Spider tamed, given by the Abbé d’Olivet, author of the Life of Pelisson, in the following passage:—
“Confined at that time in a solitary place, and where the light of day only penetrated through a mere slit, having no other servant than a stupid and dull clown, a Basque, who was continually playing on the bagpipes, Pelisson studied by what means to secure himself against an enemy, which a good conscience alone cannot always repel; I mean, the attacks of unemployed imagination, which, when it once exceeds proper limits, becomes the most cruel torture of a recluse individual. He adopted the following stratagem:—Perceiving a spider spinning her web at the spiracle, he undertook to tame her; and to effect this, he placed some flies on the edge of the opening, while the Basque was playing on his favourite bagpipe. The spider by degrees accustomed herself to distinguish the sound of that instrument, and to run from her hole to seize her prey; thus, by means of always calling her out by the same tune, and placing the flies nearer and nearer his own seat, after several months’ exercise, he succeeded in training the spider so well, that she would start at the first signal, to seize a fly at the farthest end of the room, and even on the knees of the prisoner.”
It has been stated, that a prisoner confined in the Bastile, retained his senses, contrary to expectation, by playing daily so many games at push-pin; he having, unknown to his keepers, secreted a battalion or two of these hostile implements. The device of Pelisson is more interesting to us, as we learn from it, that the spider, though amongst the most quarrelsome of insects, yet is capable of being rendered familiar by the reason and perseverance of man.
In the introduction to a modern Entomology there is a description of the process by which the spider weaves its web. After describing the four spinners, as they are termed, from which the visible threads proceed, the writer makes the following curious observations:—“These are machinery, through which, by a process more singular than that of rope-spinning, the thread is drawn. Each spinner is pierced, like the plate of a wire-drawer, with a multitude of holes, so numerous, and exquisitely fine, that a space often not larger than a pin’s point includes a thousand. Through each of these holes proceeds a thread of inconceivable tenuity, which, immediately after issuing from the orifice, unites with all the other threads from the spinner, into one. Hence, from each spinner proceeds a compound thread; and these four threads, at the distance of about one-tenth of an inch from the apex of the spinner, again unite, and form the thread we are accustomed to see, which the spider uses in forming its web. Thus, a spider’s web, even spun by the smallest species, and when so fine that it is almost imperceptible to our senses, is not, as we suppose, a straight line, but a rope, composed of at least 400 yarns.”
We shall close this chapter with a curious Anecdote of a Spider, connected with observations on the utility of ants in destroying venomous creatures; by Captain Bagnold.