STRENGTH OF WEBS AND POWER OF SPIDERS. 243 



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 descended 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 became circulated, and hun- 

 dreds of people visited the stable to witness it. The mouse was a small 

 one, measuring about one and a lialf inches from the point of its nose 

 to the root of the tail." 



Mr. P. C. Cleaver, in whose office the incident occurred, wrote me the 

 following statement: "I have two small rooms in my livery stable, one. 

 used as an office and the other as a bedroom for my clerk. In 

 Mr.^ Clea- ^-^^^^ front room stands against the east wall a writing desk just 

 ,. tall enough for an ordinary sized man to stand and write on. 



When I first saw it the mouse was under this desk, fastened in 

 the spider's web, with its head down and tail up. Eighteen inches or two 

 feet above the mouse was a small spider, whose body was about the size 

 of a small grain of sweet sugar corn, certainly not larger than would 

 cover the nail of your smallest finger. It was of a dark color, but not black. 

 I first saw it about one o'clock P. M., when the toes of the mouse barely 

 touched the floor. The spider kept working it up until finally it was three 

 or four inches from the floor, and was still alive when I left my stable 

 to go home at night. I can give you no information as to the web that 

 will satisfy you. It was long enough to reach to the floor, and there were 

 a good many strands of it wound in many intricate ways that I do not 

 understand. The web was very fine. I left the spider at work that even- 

 ing at sunset, with orders that it should not be touched. But the web 

 was knocked down that night — by some boys, I think, as a great many 

 were there to see the siglit, and my clerk thinks it was lost in that way. 

 The spider, mouse, and web were all gone when I returned to the stable 

 -on the following morning." Mr. Cleaver emphatically declares the impos- 

 sibility of any one about his premises having manipulated tlie mouse in 

 any manner to secure its entanglement in the web. "I am as sure," he 

 says, "that the spider caught and raised the mouse three or four inches 

 from the floor by himself without the aid of man, as though I liad been 

 present from first to last." 



Mr. Hopper, in addition to the printed article, sent me a written 

 report of the incident, from which the following quotations are made : 

 "As you will see from this account, no one observed the actual 

 Mr. Hop- entanglement of the mouse. In a very short time after it was 

 I- first observed I myself was informed of it, and went to the 



stable to examine it. This was Monday, August 22d, 1881. 

 The office of the stable is a small room. The desk referred to is some- 

 thing over three feet high, four feet four inches long, and something 

 over two feet wide. From the bottom of the desk to the floor the distance 



