The disgust aroused by the spider is by no means a just one, and the fear some people have of these insects is most unreasonable and absurd. In tropical countries the bites of some are dangerous, but not nearly so much so as is supposed. Our own spiders are harmless enough. I never destroy the webs they make in my garden, the circular nets which they stretch from one branch to another, which are considered by experts to show a perfection of weaving, whilst those webs which are woven in odd corners of our dwellings reveal an intelligence in their arrangement which is perfectly marvellous. I heard a clever man say lately that spiders were the greatest engineers in the world.
In some corner of your room you may study the horizontal net, covered with dust, perhaps, which is the base of the structure. Irregularly-crossed threads above this cause the prey to become entangled, and its end is inevitable. Most ingenious is the den in which the hunter is hidden in waiting. It consists of a circular tunnel with a double outlet. One of these, being horizontal, opens on to the web. The other is vertical, with a passage below, which serves as a trapdoor, whilst from the former the spider darts out on his prey. As soon as a fly has been destroyed—its blood sucked—it is seized by its captor and dragged to the tunnel to be thrown out at the trapdoor. This is no doubt lest the débris should alarm other flies. The hunter can also escape itself, when necessary, by this exit. This does not often happen, perhaps, and the main use of the trapdoor, says M. Pouchet, an interesting French naturalist, is to get rid of the remains of the spider's repasts.
"The poison apparatus of spiders," says the same author, "is precisely analogous to that of serpents, only it is of microscopic size. It possesses mobile teeth, hollow fangs which distil the poison into the wound, and this is secreted by a peculiar gland situated in the interior of the palpi attached to the under jaws which effect the bite. In the large tropical species this lethal fluid is so active that it kills in an instant animals of a far superior size, and is often employed against the birds which the spiders seize on the trees." The so-called Bird-eating Spider attacks the lovely humming-birds. It is called the Great Spider in South America, and its cocoon is three inches long and one broad.
Thinking of the creatures of prey and their quarry is always a painful subject. Yet we know surely that the all-wise Creator would not order the balance of nature to be kept up in this way if it involved cruelty. There is cruelty in some of the methods of vivisection—in the horrible way, for instance, in which one French scientist at least has studied and tested by torture how far a poor loving mother dog will bear being maimed, before it can be induced to leave its offspring. And there is a brutality, as demoralising to the men who have to carry out their master's orders in felling oxen for the market, as it is torturing to the poor beasts. Nature's methods of killing are, as a rule, mercifully rapid. It seems to be a part of the Creator's plan that some of His creatures should live on the rest, and "some," says a thoughtful writer on God's providence, "have suggested that such a state of things implies a reflection upon the Divine goodness, ... but by the means now specified some classes of animals are held in check which would otherwise so multiply as to become an intolerable nuisance."
And so we consider with complacence the fact that the cat kills the mouse, the owl catches up the field vole and the beetle; the swallow rids the air of insect pests which would render life intolerable, the ladybird lives on the aphides that devour our plants—those fat green insects which destroy our roses and honeysuckle.
The spider does his own appointed work in a way which shows astute intelligence. Death is the common lot, and most of the creatures preyed on pass swiftly away in the full height of enjoyment without lingering sickness or decay. I have known a spider's web put to a very odd purpose by a lady I knew well in New Zealand, a very successful poultry rearer. When her chickens had "the pip," she declared that she cured them by a buttered pill consisting of spiders' webs. And I have known also Chinamen give dying men, as a last remedy, a tiny chicken pounded up in a mortar, bones, feathers, and all, and welded into a huge pill. They declared that it often cured when all else had failed. But this is a digression.
To return to our spiders. Besides the geometric spiders (sic) we have the gossamer spiders, little creatures that make floating webs in the air and on the ground in the autumn. These avail themselves cleverly of the currents of air in attaching their lines, raising their arms to test the direction of the light winds. Her webs are often destroyed by rain or wind, or broken by some large creature like a bee or a wasp getting entangled in one; but the patient worker is not so discouraged as to give up. She patiently fasts, until the damage is repaired. And spiders seem to be weather prophets, for it has been stated that when it threatens to become wet and stormy, the outdoor spider will make the threads which support its net short, but if they expect finer, settled weather, these will be long. As is the case with ants, some species are more provident than others, and one has been described which suspended its prey in the meshes above and below the centre of the net, having quite a well-stocked larder. In the Fen countries a raft of a ball of weeds, held together by slight silken threads or cords, is often observed, on which the spider floats down a stream in quest of drowning insects.
The "Mason Spider's" home consists of a hole several inches deep in the ground, and perfectly cylindrical. It is lined with hangings. The one nearest the rough sides is thick, and carelessly woven. Over this, like a skilful decorator, he places a hanging of fine silk, carefully wrought. The door or lid of this dwelling is furnished with a cushion of silk inside, whilst above it is made of the same material as the soil, so that when the master is at home there is nothing to reveal that fact, his door being closed. Layers of earth and silk compose the lid.
Kate Dalrymple, as the old Scottish ballad tells us, was "Aye eident and thrifty." Eident is a rare word, expressive of great perseverance and application. "To be called eident and thrifty" was the greatest commendation to the good graces of the desired mother-in-law. I am not sure, however, apart from this, that it is always a very desirable thing to be coveted as a wished-for daughter-in-law. A very shrewd friend of mine, a witty Scotchwoman, when young was told that the mother of one of her suitors was very anxious that she should marry him. "'Deed," said the girl, "I'd sooner marry a man whose mother was not so anxious to get him married." And she was quite right.
But to be persevering as well as brave, and to be gifted with physical energy and endurance, is a rare endowment for any woman. Mrs. Scott Gatty, in one of her stories, tells of a preacher who used to say, "Girls, be brave; boys, be pure." I used to hear this story many years before, as a child. It was told then of an old superintendent of a Sunday-school. He would say, "Boys, they bid you be brave and girls be pure; but I say, Girls be brave and boys be pure." Then the world would be far on in a better way than it is now.