130 SPIDERS [CH. 



light, the germ of an insect or a spider would seem 

 in a sense to be more complex than that of an animal 

 whose vague instinctive impulses are under the 

 direction of intelligence, and can be carried out in a 

 variety of ways according to circumstances. 



One of the most surprising things about the egg 

 of a spider is the amount of energy stored up in it. 

 A bird's egg, huge in comparison, contains material 

 sufficient to build up the body of a fledgeling just 

 sufficiently active to be able to accept from the 

 mother that first nutriment without which it will 

 speedily die. 



But turn back to the account of the tarantula- 

 spider. Its egg is small perhaps the twelfth of an 

 inch in diameter ; yet it not only produces a spiderling 

 complete in form, and provided with all the complex 

 instincts of its tribe, but there is so much energy to 

 spare that, for months, without any new food-supply, 

 the young spider can lead an active life, frequently 

 descending from and remounting its mother's back, 

 and can even put forth silk on its own account ! The 

 objects which a conjuror produces from a hat seem 

 trifles in comparison with the outcome of a spider's 

 egg the actual material seems astonishing from so 

 small a source, but whence comes all this surprising 

 surplus of energy ? Fabre suggests that it is supplied 

 by the direct rays of the sun, to which the Tarantula 

 exposes in turn all parts of the egg-cocoon. 



