The Clotho Spider 



better than a Beetle's wing-case, a SnaiF„ shell 

 or a Spider's web? Granite is worth none of 

 them. Entrusted to the hard stone, an inscrip- 

 tion becomes obliterated; entrusted to a 

 Butterfly's wing, it is indestructible. 'Du- 

 rand,' therefore, by all means. 



But why drag in 'Clotho'? Is it the whim 

 of a nomenclator, at a loss for words to 

 denote the ever-swelling tide of beasts that 

 require cataloguing? Not entirely. A 

 mythological name came to his mind, one 

 which sounded well and which, moreover, was 

 not out of place in designating a spinstress. 

 The Clotho of antiquity is the youngest of the 

 three Fates; she holds the distaff whence our 

 destinies are spun, a distaff wound with plenty 

 of rough flocks, just a few shreds of silk and, 

 very rarely, a thin strand of gold. 



Prettily shaped and clad, as far as a Spider 

 can be, the Clotho of the naturalists is, above 

 all, a highly talented spinstress; and this is the 

 reason why she is called after the distaff- 

 bearing deity of the infernal regions. It is a 

 pity that the analogy extends no further. 

 The mythological Clotho, niggardly with her 

 silk and lavish with her coarse flocks, spins us 

 a harsh existence; the eight-legged Clotho 



}6i 



