The Clotho Spider 



Then where is the entrance? All the 

 arches of the edge open upon the roof; not 

 one leads to the interior. The eye seeks in 

 vain; there is naught to point to a passage 

 between the inside and the outside. Yet the 

 owner of the house must go out from time to 

 time, were it only in search of food; on return- 

 ing from her expedition, she must go in again. 

 How does she make her exits and her en- 

 trances? A straw will tell us the secret. 



Pass it over the threshold of the various 

 arches. Everywhere, the searching straw en- 

 counters resistance; everywhere, it finds the 

 place rigorously closed. But one of the 

 scallops, differing in no wise from the others 

 in appearance, if cleverly coaxed, opens at the 

 edge into two lips and stands slightly ajar. 

 This is the door, which at once shuts again of 

 its own elasticity. Nor is this all: the Spider, 

 when she returns home, often bolts herself in, 

 that is to say, she joins and fastens the two 

 leaves of the door with a little silk. 



The Mason Mygale is no safer in her 

 burrow, with its lid undistinguishable from the 

 soil and moving on a hinge, than is the Clotho 

 in her tent, which is inviolable by any 

 enemy ignorant of the device. The Clotho, 



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