When he had satisfied himself that no outlet was to be found on the ground-floor, he attempted to scale the glassy sides, which formed around him a circle of slippery and invisible walls; but his claws, sharp and bent like the tiger's, slipped on the hard, bare crystal, and after a quarter of an hour spent in the useless struggle, he fell back fatigued, discouraged, and panting into the middle of the vase. There he rolled and gathered his limbs together, resigned to die, as a gladiator of old kneeled in the midst of the arena, when he saw the Roman ladies raise their white hands and depress their delicate thumbs, to demand the death of the victim.
A witness of the captive's efforts, feeling curious to know what would be the other acts of the drama now begun, took the glass vase and placed it in his cabinet, where there was the least light, so that he might be able to watch the spider without disturbing it.
The latter remained immovable, rolled up, and dead to all appearance, until night closed in. Then, the observer, carelessly stretched in his easy chair, heard a movement, imperceptible, but which sounded at the bottom of the vase. He drew near to it with a light—immediately the spider feigned death. He was obliged, therefore, for that evening, to give up knowing all that took place, and the prisoner remained free from surveillance till the next day morning.
Then it was seen that the bottom of the vase was diapered all round, and about an inch up, with myriads of little whitish points, placed at distances almost geometrically regular. The spider slept in the middle.
The next day silver threads were found, starting from each of these points to those opposite; these formed the warp of the web. The third day, the woof enlaced the threads of the warp, and thus a vast net was made to outstretch above the bottom of the glass vase; and some threads, arranged at equal distances, fixed this elastic floor, and rendered it firm.
The spider, notwithstanding these gigantic labors, remained still in view, and wanted a dwelling. It had indeed a floor, or rather a carpet, on which it could walk without wearing or breaking its claws; the nets for hunting were stretched, but there was need of an apartment where it could find shelter and concealment, besides, it had no bed to sleep on.
With difficulty and unheard-of trouble, it succeeded in fixing, at some distance above the net, thirty of the white points, of which I told you before. These served as fixtures for a roof, which was constructed down to the net, rounded, fashioned little by little like a horn, furnished with threads finer, silkier, more closely woven, and more deeply colored, and thus became a nest impenetrable to the eye, and impervious to moisture. Some drops of water poured on this dwelling glided down its walls without penetrating them the least in the world, fell in trembling pearls through the net, and stopped at the bottom of the vase, where they evaporated.
The spider had drawn the threads, which an approximative calculation might estimate, without exaggeration, at two thousand feet in length, from six spinners attached to the abdomen, and which secrete a grayish fluid, instantly transformed, by contact with the air, into silky threads, and of astonishing strength, if we consider their tenuity! A single spider's-thread, if not broken by a shock, will sustain a weight of 270 grains!
Once his establishment finished, the spider took to passing the days and nights on the threshold of his dwelling, waiting with unexampled patience until chance should bring him some prey. This, however, did not happen; flies were yet scarce, and there was nothing in the vase of a kind to attract them. Two months rolled by, during which the poor animal grew remarkably thin.
At last, one day, moved by compassion, the observer threw a fly to the famished creature. The little insect fell on the net, caught its wings in the invisible meshes, which covered the principal tissue, and struggled violently. Immediately the spider ran up, quickly but heavily, seized its prey with its eight feet at once, griped it with its formidable jaws, shaped like a hook, and dragged the body into his nest. An hour after he brought out of his house the remains of the fly, and threw them into the obscurest corner, the one most distant from his web, nor did he leave them without covering them with tissue, so as to hide entirely from sight the aspect of his charnel-house. Thus Brutus cast his mantle over the body of Cæsar.