"The study of a number of specimens of our southern California species, which builds the cork-type door, including observations of them at night, when they are particularly active, indicates that the construction of the tube involves other material than the silken lining employed by many burrowing spiders. In the excavation of the tube and retention of the walls, the spider appears to employ a glairy substance, which thoroughly saturates the soil and renders the interior of the tube of almost cement- like hardness. It is then plastered with a thick jet of silk from the spinning glands. This interior finishing process appears to be quite rapid, a burrow being readily lined within a couple of hours.
"The construction of the trap-door is a far more complicated process, this convex, beautifully bevelled entrance with its hinge requiring real scientific skill. Judging from observations on a number of specimens, the work is done from the outside, the spider first spinning a net-like covering over the mouth of the tube. This is thickened by weaving the body over the net, each motion leaving a smoky trail of silk. Earth is then shoveled into the covering, the spider carefully pushing the particles toward the centre, which soon sags, and assumes the proper curvature, and automatically moulds against the bevelled walls of the tube.
"The shoveling process must be nicely regulated to produce the proper bevel and thickness of the door. Then the cementing process is applied to the top, rendering the door a solid unit. From the actions of these spiders,—which often calmly rest an hour without a move,—it appears that the edges of the door are now subjected, by the stout and sharp fangs, to a cutting process like that of a can opener, leaving a portion of the marginal silk to act as a hinge. This hinge afterward receives some finishing touches, and the top of the door is either pebbled or finished with a few fragments of dead vegetation, cemented on, in order to exactly match the surrounding soil."
V
THE RIGHTS OF WILD ANIMALS
Every harmless wild bird and mammal has the right to live out its life according to its destiny; and man is in honor bound to respect those rights. At the same time it is a mistake to regard each wild bird or quadruped as a sacred thing, which under no circumstances may be utilized by man. We are not fanatical Hindus of the castes which religiously avoid the "taking of life" of any kind, and gently push aside the flea, the centipede and the scorpion. The reasoning powers of such people are strictly limited, the same as those of people who are opposed to the removal by death of the bandits and murderers of the human race.
The highest duty of a reasoning being is to reason. We have no moral or legal right to act like idiots, or to become a menace to society by protecting criminal animals or criminal men from adequate punishment. Like the tree that is known by its fruit, every alleged "reasoning being" is to be judged by the daily output of his thoughts.
Toward wild life, our highest duty is to be sane and sensible, in order to be just, and to promote the greatest good for the greatest number. Be neither a Hindu fanatic nor a cruel game- butcher like a certain wild-animal slaughterer whom I knew, who while he was on earth earned for himself a place in the hottest corner of the hereafter, and quickly passed on to occupy it.
The following planks constitute a good platform on which to base our relations with the wild animal world, and by which to regulate our duty to the creatures that have no means of defense against the persecutions of cruel men. They may be regarded as representing the standards that have been fixed by enlightened and humane civilization.