xv] SOME CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS 129 



till the widely different capacities and habits which 

 we now wonder at were slowly evolved. 



Another point to ponder on is the wonderful 

 complexity of the instincts which govern the actions 

 of spiders ; the extraordinary operations they can 

 perform, entirely untaught, and of the object of 

 which it is impossible to believe they are aware. We 

 have seen that, in the most highly organised species, 

 the sense organs except perhaps that of touch are 

 but moderately developed, and the power of memory, 

 the basis of intelligent action, but feeble ; yet their 

 inherited impulses suffice for all ordinary emergencies, 

 and recur with unfailing precision at the proper 

 periods of their lives. They are machine-like, perhaps, 

 but what extraordinarily competent machines ! The 

 light of what we call intelligence burns low, but a 

 glimmer of it can be detected here and there. 



If one comes to think of it, the egg of a creature 

 of complex instincts is a particularly wonderful atom ; 

 it contains not only the germs of all the complicated 

 bodily structure, but there are bound up in it also 

 the impulses that are to come into play at certain 

 definite periods only of the spider's life-history. And 

 these impulses are not mere vague reminders that 

 now is the time to spin a snare, or to weave an 

 egg-cocoon ; they prescribe precisely how it is to be 

 done, involving perhaps a dozen different spinning 

 operations in one unvarying order. Viewed in this 



w. s. 9 



