THE PERSEVERING SPIDER.
[Illustration]
Can any pleasant moral lesson be learned from the spider? I fancy
some of our readers asking--the spider, whom many regard as the most
treacherous, cruel, and unrelenting of those creatures who lie in wait
for prey? By the song "Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider
to the fly," in the nursery, several generations of children have been
early prejudiced against this useful and most intelligent insect.
When they are a little older, it is true, the spider is held up to them
as a wonderful example of perseverance in that story of King Robert the
Bruce, who, when he was banished from his country, lying in concealment
in a miserable hovel, and considering whether it would not be well to
give up the struggle to secure his own, and with it restore freedom to
his country, was attracted by the sight of a spider hanging at the
end of a thread and trying to swing from one part of the cabin roof
to another in order there to fix its line. Six times whilst the King
watched it attempted to do this and failed. The Bruce remembered then
that he also had made just six attempts--that is, fought six battles
with his enemies, and without success. "Now," thought he, "if that
spider tries a seventh time and succeeds, I will take it as a good omen
for myself, and will also try my fortune a seventh time." The spider
reached the beam, and Bruce went forth to victory after victory.
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.
"The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces,"
says the wise man in Proverbs xxx. 28. What a picture in a few simple
words of the industry, courage and perseverance with which this little
creature is gifted! and of the reward which would seem to be implied.
Shall we seem to be straining the image if we allow our thoughts to be
carried by this picture to the home of our heavenly King, where, as
we are promised, our eyes shall see Him "in His beauty"? "To patient
faith," says the hymn, "the prize is sure."
The spider, we might say, is essentially of an aspiring nature. She
weaves her net high up in corners where the duster and broom of the
busy housemaid will not easily reach her. She fasts long and is not
drawn away from the spot where she expects to get the reward of her
patience. Many of us can work hard and well by fits and starts, but we
weary of sustained effort, and we are "found sleeping." Or like the
pilgrims to the Celestial City we are tempted to stray and delight
ourselves in flowery "Bypath meadows." Play, healthy recreation, we
must have, but it must be such as helps us in the race of life and not
such as weakens our purpose and hinders us from reaching the desired
goal. I look back sometimes on the companions of my girlhood, and I
must often acknowledge that certain boys and girls whom we were wont to
reproach as being dull plodders, have beaten many of their fellows in
the battle of life.
There is a species of spider which carries, attached to her body, a
round, white, silky bag of eggs, just about as big as a pea. It is
heavy, but nothing would induce the affectionate mother to part with
it. The French naturalist, Bonnet, in order to test this love for
her offspring, once threw such a mother spider into the hole of an
ant-lion, in the sand where the great insect lay in hiding for its
prey. The poor spider tried to run away but the ant-lion caught at the
bag of eggs and tried to drag it under the sand. At last he succeeded
in breaking the gluten by which her bag was attached to her. Instantly
the spider seized this in her jaws and she struggled hard to bear it
away. It was in vain however; her precious burden was dragged under.
Then the poor mother might have escaped with her own life, but she
preferred death to the loss of her offspring, and if the naturalist had
not taken her out of the pit she would have been buried with them. She
would not leave the spot however, although Bonnet tried to make her do
so, by moving her with a little twig, over and over again. In reading
this one cannot help wishing that she had not been so tortured. Some of
our scientists, as I said before, have pushed their studies of moral
qualities in the so-called brute world to a most unjustifiable extent,
it would seem.
When the young of this affectionate mother are hatched, and they
have got out of the bag where they were kept so safely, they attach
themselves to her body. She carries them everywhere she goes and feeds
them until they are able to fend for themselves.
Referring to persevering industry, we recall the pretty story of
William Cobbett's courtship and marriage, as told by Dr. Smiles,
from his "Life." Cobbett was a practical man, full of blunt common
sense. When he first saw the girl who afterwards became his wife,
she was only thirteen years of age, he being twenty-one, and at the
time sergeant-major in a foot regiment stationed at St. John's in New
Brunswick. Passing her father's door, on a cold winter's day, he saw
the girl out in the snow, scrubbing a washing-tub. "That's the girl for
me!" he cried, mentally, and he set about making her acquaintance. As
soon as he could get discharged from the army, he determined that he
would persuade her to become his wife. The girl returned to Woolwich
with her father, who was also a sergeant-major, but in the artillery.
The night before they left St. John's, her lover sent her a hundred and
fifty guineas which he had saved, begging her to accept it, so that she
might not be obliged to do any hard work until he also could return to
England and marry her. She took the money, and it was five years before
Cobbett obtained his discharge and was able to go to see the girl he
loved. "I found," he said, "my little girl a servant of all work--and
hard work it was--at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain
Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put
into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken." Soon
afterwards they were married, and he delighted later in attributing
to her "the comfort and much of the success of his after life." In
his "Advice to young men" he drew from his wife his picture of a true
and womanly helpmate, with "a vividness and brightness and, at the
same time, a force of good sense that have never been surpassed by any
English writer."
What Sarah Martin, who was left an orphan very young, and who as a
woman went out dressmaking first at one shilling a day, was able to
achieve in visiting and helping to reclaim poor prison women, and not
only them but dissolute men and boys, loving, praying, and watching by
them, you ought all to read fully. I think the story of her life was
published by the Religious Tract Society. She gave six and seven hours
to this work every day. For twenty years she did this without help or
reward--her grandmother having left her ten or twelve pounds a year;
the rest of her income coming from her hard work during part of each
day as a dressmaker. At last the gaol committee told her that she must
become their paid servant at twelve pounds a year or "be excluded from
the prison." Although she shrank from this payment of her labours of
love, she had to accept it, or give up her charge, and for two years
she had that poor stipend until her health failed. She was in point
of fact schoolmistress and chaplain and seamstress to the scum of
Yarmouth. But what a reward was hers!
In my last paper I quoted Matthew Arnold's lines--
"Tasks in hours of insight willed
May be through hours of gloom fulfilled."
"_Les beaux esprits se rencontrent_," and it will perhaps interest
some of you, as it has done myself, to hear that Professor Tyndall
used to say of Professor Faraday that "in his warm moments he formed
a resolution and in his cool ones he made that resolution good." We
cannot all be active scientists or philanthropists, but let us end this
little study by resolving that we will be less discouraged and hindered
by difficulties in our own special work, or by the consideration of
what we are apt to deem our unfitness for the appointed task, our own
inadequacy, than we have hitherto been.
"With one hand work and with the other pray,
And God shall bless them both from day to day."
(_To be continued._)
"OUR HERO."
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of "Sun, Moon and Stars," "The Girl at the
Dower House," etc.