THE STRENGTH OF SPIDERS AND SPIDER-WEBS. 47 



for it to break. In a short time it was seen that the spider was 

 slowly hoisting its victim into the air. By two o'clock in the 

 afternoon the mouse could barely touch the floor with its fore- 

 feet ; by dark the point of its nose was an inch above the floor. 

 At nine o'clock at night 

 the mouse was still alive, 

 but made no sign except 

 when the spider descend- 

 ed and bit its tail. At 

 this time it was an inch 

 and a half from the floor. 

 Yesterday morning the 

 mouse was dead, and 

 hung three inches from 

 the floor. The news of 

 the novel sight soon be- 

 came circulated, and hun- 

 dreds of people visited 

 the stable to witness it. 

 The mouse was a small 

 one, measuring about an 

 inch and a half from the 

 point of its nose to the 

 root of the tail." 



The space given the 

 above facts may seem to ||| 

 some to be in undue pro- 

 portion to their impor- 

 tance. But, apart from 

 the value of positively 

 determining any point in 

 natural history, the dis- 

 cussion has this conclusion : The capture of small vertebrate ani- 

 mals by both sedentary and wandering spiders is possible; the 

 one by the mechanical strength of their snares, the other by their 

 physical strength. There is thus laid the foundation, at least, for 

 the presumption that such animals may be or become natural 

 food for the larger species of araneads. This is certainly a most 

 important fact in the life-history of spiders, and would greatly 

 enlarge the range of their habits. 



Fig. 5.— A Mouse hanging in a Spider's Snare. 



Me. F. J. Moss, of the New Zealand Legislature, and an extensive traveler in 

 Polynesia, suggests that the deterioration of the natives of those regions may be 

 partly due to faulty instruction. It is neither desirable nor expedient to thwart Na- 

 ture too much. What is most needed, this author thinks, is to allow the islanders in 

 their work and their amusements free scope for the imaginative powers with which 

 they are endowed, and the exercise of which is too often foolishly discouraged. 



