On the other hand, the poor artisan which lives by itself, and is always exhausted by the incessant toil of spinning and weaving, cannot rely upon its valour. It has need, in certain countries and under certain alarming conditions, of profound ingenuity, and has discovered this little miracle of prudence and combination, which eclipses both the savage and the insect. I do not refer to the great animals, none of which, except the beaver, are very industrious.
In the neighbourhood of Lucerne we for the first time saw the house of the spider (the Agelena). It was a kind of sheath, and very well made, with a vestibule facing the south, which expanded outward like a funnel. This exterior portion, forming a little sunny retreat, was the snare and the citadel. The lady of the house stationed herself quite at the bottom of the funnel; but behind this very bottom, at the lower extremity of the case or sheath, was constructed a back apartment, small and very secure, in a white substantial cocoon. In this she trusted so completely, that while we detached the silken cables which moored the entire edifice to the bush, she made no attempt to escape. We had neither destroyed nor damaged, but simply detached the dwelling, and on the day following we found it repaired and moored to the bush on every side. The exposure was no longer so favourable; but, undoubtedly, the workman, in an advanced season of the year (in September, and under the Alps), did not possess the resources for recommencing this grand summer-work.
In the Brazilian forests a little spider has its case suspended exactly in the centre of its web; and thither it hurries at the slightest approach of danger, and has no sooner entered, says Swainson, than the door suddenly closes behind it by a spring.
But the masterpiece of the genus is seen, especially in Corsica, in the laborious Mygale. Its residence is a kind of well, industriously walled round, with smooth and polished sides, and a double tapestry,—a coarse strong hanging on the earthward front, and a fine satiny hanging in the interior. The orifice of the well is closed by a door. This door is a disc, much larger at the top than at the bottom, and let into a groove in such a manner as to shut hermetically. The disc, which is not more than three lines thick, contains, nevertheless, thirty double woofs, and between the woofs intervene the same number of coats or layers of earth,—so that the entire door is really composed of sixty doors. Here, in truth, is a miracle of patience; but observe, too, the ingenuity,—all these doors of network and earth clamp into one another. The thread-doors at one point are prolonged to the wall, fastening the door to the wall as by a hinge. This door opens outwardly when the spider raises it to go forth, and closes by its own weight. But the enemy might eventually succeed in opening it. This has been anticipated. On the side opposite the hinge some small holes are worked in the door; to these the spider clings, and becomes a living bolt.[O]
[O] See the works of Audouin and Walckenaëër.
What would happen if this astonishing artisan, placed in peculiar and trying circumstances (like the bees under Huber's experiments), were called upon to vary its art and devise a novelty? Could it do so? Has it the intelligence, the resource, and, at need, the power of innovation which the superior insects display under certain conditions? It would be worth while to make the experiment. This, at all events, is certain, that the simple Epeiras (our garden-spiders) know very well, when deprived of the necessary space for extending their geometrical curtain, how to construct one of irregular design, decreasing in proportion to the restrictions of their area.
Experiments, moreover, are difficult. The spider is so nervous, that the fear which makes it an artist can also paralyze and utterly confound it. Its web alone gives it courage. Out of its web, everything makes it tremble. In captivity, having no web, it actually flees before its prey, and has not the resolution to confront a fly.