Argiope of the Silver Shield is the handsomest spider that Mary and I
know. Do you know a handsomer? Or are you of those who have
prejudices, and hold all spiders to be ugly, hateful things? We are so
sorry for you if you are, for that means you can never enjoy having a
pet Argiope. The truth is, Mary and I like clever and skillful people,
but when we can't find that kind, we rather prefer clever and skillful
spiders and wasps or other lowly beasties to the other sort of people,
which shows just how far a fancy for nature may lead one.
It _is_ rather bad, of course, to prefer to chum with a spider, even
such a wonderfully handsome and clever one as Argiope, instead of
with a human soul. But that isn't our situation exactly. We prefer
human souls to anything else on earth, but not human stomachs and
livers and human bones and muscles and sick human nerves. And,
someway, too many people leave on one an impression of bowels or sore
eyes rather than one of mind and soul. So we rush to the fields or
woods or roads after such an experience and live a while with the keen
bright eyes, the sensitive feelers, the dexterous feet and claws and
teeth, and the sharp wits of the small folk who, while not human, are
nevertheless inhabitants and possessors of this earth, side by side
with us, and are truly our blood-cousins, though some incredible
number of generations removed.
Mary and I scraped acquaintance with our Argiope in a cypress-tree.
That is, Argiope had her abiding-place there; she was there on her
great symmetrical orb-web, with its long strong foundation lines,
its delicate radii and its many circles with their thousands of
tiny drops of viscid stuff to make them sticky. In the center was the
hub, her resting-place, whence the radii ran out, and where she had
spun a broad zigzaggy band of white silk on which she stood or sat
head downward. Her eight long, slender, sensitive legs were
outstretched and rested by their tips lightly on the bases of the taut
radii so that they could feel the slightest disturbance in the web.
These many radii, besides supporting the sticky circles or spiral,
which was the real catching part of the web, acted like so many
telegraph lines to carry news of the catching to waiting Argiope at
the center.
I have said that Mary and I think Argiope of the Silver Shield
the most handsome spider we know. There are, however, other
Argiopes to dispute the glory with our favorite; for example, a
golden-yellow-and-black one and another beautiful silver-and-russet
one. Other people, too, may fancy other spiders; perhaps the little
pink-and-white crab-spiders of the flower-cups, or the curious spiny
Acrosomas and Gasteracanthas with their brilliant colors and bizarre
patterns and shape. Others may like the strawberry Epeira, or the
diadem-spider, or the beautiful Nephilas. There are enough kinds and
colors and shapes of spiders to satisfy all tastes. But we like best
and admire most the long-legged, agile, graceful Argiopes, and
particularly her of the silver shield. Her full, firm body with its
flat, shield-shaped back, all shining silver and crossed by staring
black-and-yellow stripes, the long tapering legs softly ringed with
brown and yellow, the shining black eyes on their little rounded
hillock of a forehead, and the broad, brown under body with eight
circular silver spots; all go to make our Argiope a richly dressed and
stately queen of spiders. But the royal consort--O, the less said of
him, the better. A veritable dwarf; insignificant, inconspicuous and
afraid for his life of his glorious mate. How such a queen could
ever--but there, how tiresome, for that is what gets said of most
matches, royal or plebeian.
Mary and I brought Argiope in from her home in the cypress-tree and
put her in a fine, roomy, light and airy cage, where she could live
quietly and unmolested by enemies, and where we could see to it that
she should not lack for food. There are many of the small creatures
with which we get acquainted that do not object at all to being
brought into our well-lighted, well-ventilated, warm vivarium--that
means live-room. Creatures of sedentary habits, and all the web-making
spiders are of course that, ought not to object at all and usually do
not seem to. For they get two things that they cannot be sure of
outside: protection and plenty of food. Argiope seemed perfectly
content and settled right down to spinning a glistening new web, a
marvel of symmetry and skillful construction, in her roomy cage, and
in a day or two was seated quietly but watchfully on the broad-banded
hub in the center, with her toes on her telegraph lines, ready for
good news. It was, of course, our duty to see that she was not
disappointed.
The message she wanted was from some struggling fly fastened anywhere
in the broad expanse of web. So we tossed in a fly. It buzzed about a
moment, then blundered into the web which it shook violently in its
struggle to escape. Argiope rushed at once out upon the web.
"How can she run about on the sticky web without getting caught, too?"
interrupts Mary.
I think a moment, then with some dignity reply: "Pretty soon, please,
Mary."
Argiope, I repeat, rushed at once out upon the web, seized the fly in
her jaws and ran back to the hub with it, where she appeared to wet
it all over, squeeze it into a ball and then proceed to feed upon it,
holding and manipulating it skillfully all the time in her jaws.
Evidently Argiope was very hungry, for as you will see, this is not
her usual way of taking care of her prey.
"Now, Mary, what was it you asked?"
"Oh, just how the spider can run around so fast on the web without
sticking to it and getting caught or tearing it all to pieces."
"Ah,--ah, yes. Well, Mary, I don't know! that is, exactly; or, well
not even very close to exactly. But she does it, you see."
"Yes, I see," said Mary, demurely, and--can it be that Mary is
slightly winking one eye? I do hope not.
"Of course you know, Mary, that the web is made of two kinds of silk
or rather two kinds of lines? Oh, you didn't know?" Mary has shaken
her head.
"Well it is," I continue, with my usual manner of teacher-who-knows
somewhat restored again. "The foundation lines, the radii and a first
set of circles are all made of lines without any sticky stuff on them.
As you see"--and I touch my pencil confidently to a radius, with the
manner of a parlor magician. "Then the spider, on this foundation,
spins in another long spiral, the present circles of the web, which is
liberally supplied with tiny, shining droplets of viscid silk that
never dries, but stays moist and very sticky all the time. This is the
true catching part of the web."
"We surely must watch her spin a web sometime," breaks in eager Mary.
"We certainly must," say I, and continue. "Now perhaps when Argiope
runs out on the web from her watching-place at the hub, she only puts
her long delicate feet on the unsticky radii. Or perhaps her feet are
made in some peculiar way so that they do not stick to the circles. As
a matter of fact, a spider's foot is remarkably fashioned, with
curious toothed claws, and hosts of odd hairs, some knobbed, some
curved and hook-like, and some forming dense little brushes. But after
all, Mary, the truth is, I don't know really how it is that spiders
can run about over their webs without getting stuck to them."
After my long discursus about web-making and spider's feet, it seemed
time to give Argiope another fly. Indeed her bright little black eyes
seemed to Mary to be shining with eagerness for more fly, although she
still had the remains of the first one in her jaws--gracious,
Argiope's jaws, please, not Mary's!
So we tossed in another fly. We hope you won't think this cruel. But
flies are what Argiope eats, and if she was out in the garden, she
would be catching them, and, what is worse, they would not be the
disgusting and dangerous house-flies and bluebottles that we feed her,
but all sorts of innocent and beautiful little picture-winged
flower-flies and pomace-flies and what not. House-flies and
stable-flies and bluebottles are truly dangerous because they help
spread human diseases, especially typhoid fever. So if we are to live
safely they should be killed. Or, better, prevented from hatching and
growing at all.
So we tossed in another fly. Argiope immediately dropped the nearly
finished first fly into the web, ran out to the new one and pounced on
it, seizing it with her fore legs. Then she doubled her abdomen
quickly underneath her and there issued from the spinnerets at its tip
a jet, a flat jet of silk, which was caught up by the hind feet and
wrapped around the fly as it was rolled over and over by the front
feet. She tumbled it about, all the time wrapping it with the issuing
band of silk, until it was completely enswathed. Then she left it
fastened in the web, went back to the hub, and resumed her feeding on
the first fly. But soon she finished this entirely, dropped the wreck
out of the web and went out and got the second fly, bringing it back
to the hub to eat.
"But why," asked Mary, "does Argiope wrap the fly up so carefully in
silk? Why not just kill it by biting, and then leave it in the web
until she wants it?"
"Perhaps," I answer, "she wants to make it helpless before she comes
to close quarters with it. You notice she holds it away from her body
with her fore feet and pulls the silk band out far with her hind feet
so that her body does not touch the fly at all while she wraps it.
Perhaps she is not sure that it isn't a bee or some other stinging
insect. It buzzes loud enough to make me think it a bee."
So Mary and I decided to try some experiments with our Argiope to find
out, if possible, first, if she could tell a bee from a fly, and
second, if so, whether she treated it differently, and third, why she
wraps her prey up so carefully before coming to too close quarters
with it. We feel quite proud of these experiments because we seemed to
be doing something really scientific; and we know that Experimental
Zoology, that is, studying animals by experimenting with them, is
quite the most scientific thing going nowadays among professional
naturalists. So here are our notes exactly as we wrote them during our
experimenting. This is, of course, the correct manner for publishing
real scientific observations, because it gives the critical reader a
chance to detect flaws in our technique!