THE SPIDER--INDUSTRY--THE STOPPAGE.
Before we pass on to those insect communities with which the latter
portion of this volume will be occupied, let us speak here of a
solitary individual.
Higher, and yet lower, than the insect, the spider is separated from it
by its organization, but connected with it by its instincts, wants, and
food.
A being strongly specialized in two particulars, it is excluded from
the great classes of the animal kingdom, and stands isolated, as it
were, in creation.
In the fertile countries of the tropics, where game abounds, it lives
with its fellows. Some are said to weave around a tree one immense
net, common to all, whose avenues they guard in perfect agreement.
Nay more: having frequent occasion to deal with powerful insects, and
even little birds, they co-operate in the hour of peril, and lend each
other, as it were, a helping hand.
But this gregarious mode of living is wholly exceptional, confined to
certain species, and peculiarly favoured climates. Everywhere else the
spider, through its organism and the fatality of its life, assumes the
character of the hunter, of the savage, who, living upon uncertain
prey, remains envious, mistrustful, exclusive, and solitary.
But remember that it does not resemble the ordinary hunter, who gets
quit with his journeys, his exertions, and his activity. The spider's
hunt costs it dearly, if I may venture to say so, and demands an
incessant outlay. Every day, every hour, it must draw from its own
substance the essential element of the network which is to provide it
with food and renew that substance. Accordingly, it starves in order to
nourish, and exhausts in order to recruit itself; it grows lean on the
dubious hope of afterwards growing fat. Its life is a lottery, remitted
to the risk of a thousand unforeseen contingencies. Hence, it cannot
fail to develop into an unquiet creature, sympathizing but coldly with
its kind, in whom it sees possible competitors,--in a word, it is a
fatally egotistical animal. And were it not so, it would perish.
The worst of it is, as far as the poor creature is concerned, that it
is profoundly ugly. It is not one of those which, ugly to the naked
eye, are rehabilitated by the microscope. The overwhelming speciality
of its career has the effect, as we see among men, of attenuating one
limb, exaggerating another, and prevents anything like harmony: the
blacksmith is frequently a hunchback. In the same manner the spider
is pot-bellied. Nature has sacrificed everything to its function, its
wants, and the industrial apparatus which will satisfy those wants. It
is an artisan, a rope-maker, a spinner, and a weaver. Do not look at
its figure, but at the product of its art. It is not only a spinner,
but a spinning-mill.
Concentrated and circular, with eight feet around its body, and eight
vigilant eyes in its head, it causes astonishment by the eccentric
prominency of its enormous belly. An ignoble feature, wherein the
careless observer reads the result of gormandising! Alas, it is just
the contrary! This big belly is its workshop, its magazine, the pouch
where the rope-maker carries in front of it the material of the thread
which it winds and unwinds; but as it fills this pouch with nothing but
its very substance, it enlarges only at the expense of itself, and by
dint of extreme sobriety. And you shall often see it, though emaciated
in every limb, retaining full and expanded the treasure which is the
indispensable element of its labour, the hope of its industry, and its
only chance of a future. A true type of the man of industry! "If I fast
to-day," it says, "I shall eat perhaps to-morrow; but if my material
runs short, all is over,--my stomach must rest and fast for ever!"
My first relations with the spider were nothing less than agreeable.
In my poverty-blighted childhood, while I toiled alone (as I have
said in my book on "The People") in the then ruinous and desolate
printing-office of my father, the temporary workshop was in a kind of
cellar, sufficiently well lighted,--being a cellar in the boulevard
where my family resided, but on the ground-floor so far as concerned
the adjoining street. Through a large grated window the mid-day sun
obliquely lighted up the sombre case where I put together my little
leaden letters. There, at the angle of the wall, I distinctly perceived
a prudent spider, which, supposing the stray sunbeam would bring some
imprudent fly for its breakfast, drew near my case. This sunbeam,
falling not in its corner but nearer me, was a natural temptation to
invite its closer approach. In spite of my innate disgust, I admired
the progressive ratio of timid, slow, and prudent experiment by which
it ascertained the character of him to whose mercy it virtually
confided its very existence. It watched me closely with all its eight
eyes, and propounded to itself the problem, "Is he, or is he not, an
enemy?"
Without analyzing its figure, or very clearly distinguishing its
eyes, I felt that I was observed and watched; and apparently this
observation, in the long run, proved favourable to me. By the instinct
of work, perhaps (which is very great in its species), it perceived
that I was really a peaceful labourer, and that I was busy, like
itself, in weaving my cobweb. However this may be, it abandoned its
stratagems and precautions with a quick decision, as if adopting an
adventurous and somewhat perilous step. Not without grace it descended
upon its thread, and planted itself resolutely on our respective
frontier--the edge of my case, favoured, at that moment, with a golden
ray of the sickly sun.
I was divided between two sentiments. I confess that I did not
relish so close an intimacy,--the figure of such a friend pleased
me but little; on the other hand, this prudent and observant being,
which certainly did not lavish its confidence, seemed to say to me:
"Wherefore should I not enjoy a little of thy sun? So different in
nature, we have nevertheless arrived together from our necessitous toil
and cold obscurity at this sweet banquet of light. Let us take heart,
and fraternize. This ray which you permit me to share, receive it from
me, and preserve it. In another half century, it will kindle up your
winter."
As the little black fairy said this in its own language, whispering
low, very low--in fact, it could not be lower (for it is thus that
fairies speak)--I marked the effect of it vaguely, and it slumbered in
my mind. The circumstance, however, was recalled for a brief while some
years ago; and again, after a long interval, it has been revived on
this very day, when for the first time I record and explain it.
On the former occasion, after a domestic affliction, I was spending my
holidays in Paris, and I went daily alone to walk in my little garden
in the Rue des Postes. My family were in the country. Mechanically I
remarked the beautiful concentric stars which the spiders had woven
round my trees, and which they repaired and remade incessantly with
a laudable industry, giving themselves immense trouble to preserve
my small stock of fruits and grapes, and relieving myself from the
importunity of flies and the stings of gnats. They reminded me of
the black domestic spider which, in my childhood, had entered into
conversation with me. These latter were very different. Daughters of
air and light, always exposed, always before the eyes of men, without
other shelter than the surface of a leaf, where they may easily be
captured, they are unable to cultivate the reserve or diplomacy of
my old acquaintance. All their work, is visible, all their little
mystery open to the wind, and their persons at everybody's discretion;
they have no other protection than what may be afforded them through
compassion, or in consideration of a well-understood interest in the
positive services which they render.
Those which suspend their nests to the branches of trees, like those
which suspend them to our windows, display an evident design to place
themselves in the wind, where a current of air may waft the insects
to them, or in the path of a ray of light in which the gnat may float
and whirl. The web does not fall vertically, for such a position would
restrict it to one current; the spider, like an able seaman, gives it a
great obliquity, and thus secures a couple of currents, or even more.
From the extremity of its belly, four screw-plates or tubercles, which
can be drawn in or out (like telescopes), eject by their movement a
very little cloud, that increases in size from minute to minute. This
cloud is composed of threads of an infinite tenuity; each tubercle
secretes a thousand, and the four, by combining together their four
thousand threads, make the unique and tolerably strong thread of which
the web is woven.
Mark well, that the threads of the intelligent manufacturer are not
all alike, but of different strength and quality according to their
destination. Some are dry for warping, others viscous for gluing. The
tissues of the nest intended for the reception of the new-born are of a
cottony material, while those which will enwrap the cocoon containing
the eggs possess all the resistant power necessary for the safety of
the latter.
When the spider has produced a sufficient quantity of thread to
undertake a web, it voluntarily glides from an elevated point,
and unwinds its skein. There it remains suspended, and afterwards
reascending to its starting-point by the assistance of its tiny
cordage, moves towards another point; and continues to trace in this
manner a series of radii all diverging from the same centre.
The skein stretched, it is busied next in weaving the woof by crossing
the thread. Running from radius to radius, it touches each with its
tubercles, which fasten to it the circular border. The whole is not a
compact tissue, but a veritable network, so geometrically proportioned
that all the meshes of the circle are invariably of the same size.
[Illustration]
This web, woven out of itself, living and vibrating, is much more
than an instrument; it is a part of its being. Itself of a circular
form, the spider seems to expand within this circle, and prolong the
filaments of its nerves to the radiating threads which it weaves. In
the centre of its web lies its greatest force for attack or defence.
Out of that centre it is timid; a fly will make it recoil. The web is
its electric telegraph, responding to the lightest touch, and revealing
the presence of an imperceptible and almost imponderable victim; while,
at the same time, being slightly viscous in substance, it retains the
prey, or delays and entangles a dangerous enemy.
In windy weather, the continual agitation of the web prevents it from
giving an account of what transpires, and the spider then remains at
the centre. But usually it keeps near its machinery, hidden under a
leaf, that it may not terrify its victims, or fall a prey to any of its
numerous foes.
Prudence and patience, rather than courage, are its characteristics.
Its experience is too great, it has undergone too many accidents and
misadventures, it is too much accustomed to the severities of fate, to
indulge in any surpassing audacity. It is afraid even of an ant. The
latter, often a mischievous individual, a restless and rugged rodent,
and afraid of nothing, frequently persists in exploring the strange
woof, of which it can make nothing. The spider accordingly gives
way to it,--whether it fears the acid of the ant, which burns like
aquafortis, or whether, like a good artisan, it calculates that a long
and obstinate struggle will cost it more time than will the manufacture
of another web. Therefore, without yielding to the slightest
susceptibility of self-love, it allows the ant to strut about, and
takes up its post a little further off.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Every animal lives by depredation. Nature is ever devouring itself;
but the prey is not always sought and merited by a patient industry
deserving of respect. No being, however, is so much the plaything of
fate as the spider. Like every good workman, it has a twofold value: in
its work and its person. An infinity of insects--the murderous carabus,
or the _libellula_, an elegant and splendid assassin--have only their
bodies and their weapons, and spend their lives joyously in killing.
Others possess secure and easily defended asylums, where they have
cause to fear few dangers. The field-spider has neither the one nor the
other advantage. It is in the position of the respectable operative,
who, through his small and ill-guaranteed fortune, attracts or tempts
cupidity or insolence. The lizard from below, the squirrel from above,
hunt the feeble hunter. The inert frog darts at it the viscous tongue,
which glues it and renders it immovable. It is the felicity of the
swallow, in her graceful circle, to carry off, without injuring, the
spider and his web; and all birds look upon it as a great dainty or
an excellent medicine. The nightingale, faithful, like all great
singers, to a certain hygiene, prescribes for herself, as an occasional
purgative, a spider.
Even if she be not swallowed up herself, if the instrument of her
trade is destroyed, the consequences are the same. Should the web be
undone blow upon blow, a somewhat protracted fast renders it unable to
secrete a fresh supply of thread, and it soon perishes of hunger. It is
constantly confined in this vicious circle:--
To spin, it requires food;
To feed, it must spin.
Its thread, for the spider as for the Parcæ, is that of destiny.
We once made the experiment of removing three times running a spider's
web. Three times, in six hours, it replaced it, with admirable
patience, and without abating one jot of hope. The experiment was a
cruel one, and we now reproach ourselves for it. We meet with too many
poor unfortunates, whom accidents of this kind have thrown out of work,
and who are thenceforth too exhausted to resume their industry. One
sees them, like living skeletons, attempting fruitlessly a different
trade, in which they succeed but poorly, and mournfully envying the
long legs of the field-spiders, which gain their living by incessant
travelling.
When people speak of the eager gluttony of the spider, they forget that
it must either eat a double quantity, or soon perish: eat to recruit
its body, and eat to renew its thread.
Three circumstances contribute to wear it out: the ardour of incessant
work, its nervous susceptibility--which is carried to an extreme--and
its twofold respiratory system.
For it has not only the passive respiration of the insect, which
receives, or submits to, the air introduced through its stigmata;
it has also a kind of active respiration, analogous to the play of
the lungs in the higher animals. It takes the air and masters it,
transforms and decomposes it, and incessantly renews it. If you do
but examine its movements, you feel that it is something more than an
insect; the vital glow traverses its frame in a rapid circulation; the
heart beats very differently from what it does in the fly or butterfly.
But its superiority is its peril. The insect braves with impunity the
strongest odours and mephitic miasmas. The spider cannot endure them.
Instantly affected by them, it falls into convulsions, struggles,
and expires. I saw this incident one day at Lucerne. Chloroform,
whose action the stag-beetle had endured for fourteen days without
succumbing, immediately--at the first contact--overpowered the spider.
Yet the victim was a large one, and I found it engaged in eating a
gnat. I wished to experiment, and poured on it a single drop. The
effect was terrible. Nothing more pitiful could be seen in a case of
human asphyxia. It tumbled over, raised itself, and then swooned; all
its supports failed it, and its limbs appeared disjointed. One thing
was very pathetic--that in this supreme moment the fecundity of its
bosom became apparent; in its agony, its tubercles sent forth their
little cloudy woof, so that you might have believed it to be working
even in death.
I felt oppressed, and in the hope that the fresh air would perhaps
revive it, I placed it on my window-sill; but it was no longer
_itself_. I know not how the effect was produced; but it seemed to have
melted away, and nothing of it remained but its skeleton. The vanished
substance had left but its shadow, which the wind bore away to the
neighbouring lake.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: X.--THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.]
[Illustration]