Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 193
When a person passes near one--say, within three or four yards of its lurking-place--it starts up and gives chase, and will often follow for a distance of thirty or forty yards. I came once very nearly being bitten by one of these savage creatures Riding at an easy trot over the dry grass, I suddenly observed a spider pursuing me, leaping swiftly along and keeping up with my beast. I aimed a blow with my whip, and the point of the lash struck the ground close to it, when it instantly leaped upon and ran up the lash, and was actually within three or four inches of my hand when I flung the whip from me.
The gauchos have a very quaint ballad which tells that the city of Cordova was once invaded by an army of monstrous spiders, and that the townspeople went out with beating drums and flags flying to repel the invasion, and that after firing several volleys they were forced to turn and fly for their lives. I have no doubt that a sudden great increase of the man-chasing spiders, in a year exceptionally favourable to them, suggested this fable to some rhyming satirist of the town.
In conclusion of this part of my subject, I will describe a single combat of a very terrible nature I once witnessed between two little spiders belong-ing to the same species. One had a small web against a wall, and of this web the other coveted possession. After vainly trying by a series of strategic movements to drive out the lawful owner, it rushed on to the web, and the two envenomed httle duellists closed in mortal combat. They did nothing so vulgar and natural as to make use of
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194 The Naturalist in La Plata.
their falces, and never once actually touched each other, but the fight was none the less deadly. Rapidly revolving about, or leaping over, or passing under, each other, each endeavoured to impede or entangle his adversary, and the dexterity with which each avoided the cunningly thrown snare, trying at the same time to entangle its opponent, was wonderful to see. At length, after this equal battle had raged for some time, one of the combatants made some fatal mistake, and for a moment there occurred a break in his motions; instantly the other perceived his advantage, and began leaping backwards and forwards across his struggling adversary with such rapidity as to confuse the sight, producing the appearance of two spiders attacking a third one lying between them. He then changed his tactics, and began revolving round and round his prisoner, and very soon the poor vanquished wretch--the aggressor, let us hope, in the interests of justice--was closely wrapped in a silvery cocoon, which, unlike the cocoon the caterpillar weaves for itself, was also its winding-sheet.
In the foregoing pages I have thrown together some of the most salient facts I have noted; but the spider-world still remains to me a wonderland of which I know comparatively nothing. Nor is any very intimate knowledge of spiders to be got from books, though numberless lists of new species are constantly being printed; for they have not yet had, like the social bees and ants, many loving and patient chroniclers of their ways. The Hubens and
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