218 THE SPIDER AND ITS LIFE, 
Even if she be not swallowed up herself, if the instrument of her 
trade is destroyed, the consequences are the same. Should the web be 
undone blow upon blow, a somewhat protracted fast renders it unable 
to secrete a fresh supply of thread, and it soon perishes of hunger. It 
is constantly confined in this vicious circle :— 
To spin, it requires food ; 
To feed, it must spin. 
Its thread, for the spider as for the Parcze, is that of destiny. 
We once made the experiment of removing three times running a 
spider's web. Three times, in six hours, it replaced it, with admirable 
patience, and without abating one jot of hope. The experiment was a 
cruel one, and we now reproach ourselves for it. We meet with too 
many poor unfortunates, whom accidents of this kind have thrown 
out of work, and who are thenceforth too exhausted to resume their 
industry. One sees them, lke living skeletons, attempting fruitlessly 
a different trade, in which they succeed but poorly, and mournfully 
envying the long legs of the field-spiders, which gain their living by 
incessant travelling. 
When people speak of the eager gluttony of the spider, they forget 
that it must either eat a double quantity, or soon perish: eat to recruit 
its body, and eat to renew its thread. 
Three circumstances contribute to wear it out: the ardour of in- 
cessant work, its nervous susceptibility—which is carried to an extreme 
and its twofold respiratory system. 
For it has not only the passive respiration of the insect, which re- 
ceives, or submits to, the air introduced through its stigmata; it has 
also a kind of active respiration, analogous to the play of the lungs in 
the higher animals. It takes the air and masters it, transforms and 
decomposes it, and incessantly renews it. If you do but examine its. 
movements, you feel that it is something more than an insect; the 
vital glow traverses its frame in a rapid circulation; the heart beats 
very differently from what it does in the fly or butterfly. 
But its superiority is its peril. The insect braves with impunity 
the strongest odours and mephitic miasmas. The spider cannot endure 
them. Instantly affected by them, it falls into convulsions, struggles, 
