In windy weather, the continual agitation of the web prevents it from giving an account of what transpires, and the spider then remains at the centre. But usually it keeps near its machinery, hidden under a leaf, that it may not terrify its victims, or fall a prey to any of its numerous foes.
Prudence and patience, rather than courage, are its characteristics. Its experience is too great, it has undergone too many accidents and misadventures, it is too much accustomed to the severities of fate, to indulge in any surpassing audacity. It is afraid even of an ant. The latter, often a mischievous individual, a restless and rugged rodent, and afraid of nothing, frequently persists in exploring the strange woof, of which it can make nothing. The spider accordingly gives way to it,—whether it fears the acid of the ant, which burns like aquafortis, or whether, like a good artisan, it calculates that a long and obstinate struggle will cost it more time than will the manufacture of another web. Therefore, without yielding to the slightest susceptibility of self-love, it allows the ant to strut about, and takes up its post a little further off.
Every animal lives by depredation. Nature is ever devouring itself; but the prey is not always sought and merited by a patient industry deserving of respect. No being, however, is so much the plaything of fate as the spider. Like every good workman, it has a twofold value: in its work and its person. An infinity of insects—the murderous carabus, or the libellula, an elegant and splendid assassin—have only their bodies and their weapons, and spend their lives joyously in killing. Others possess secure and easily defended asylums, where they have cause to fear few dangers. The field-spider has neither the one nor the other advantage. It is in the position of the respectable operative, who, through his small and ill-guaranteed fortune, attracts or tempts cupidity or insolence. The lizard from below, the squirrel from above, hunt the feeble hunter. The inert frog darts at it the viscous tongue, which glues it and renders it immovable. It is the felicity of the swallow, in her graceful circle, to carry off, without injuring, the spider and his web; and all birds look upon it as a great dainty or an excellent medicine. The nightingale, faithful, like all great singers, to a certain hygiene, prescribes for herself, as an occasional purgative, a spider.
Even if she be not swallowed up herself, if the instrument of her trade is destroyed, the consequences are the same. Should the web be undone blow upon blow, a somewhat protracted fast renders it unable to secrete a fresh supply of thread, and it soon perishes of hunger. It is constantly confined in this vicious circle:—
To spin, it requires food;
To feed, it must spin.
Its thread, for the spider as for the Parcæ, is that of destiny.