NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



factory answer. Some are caught up into the heavens 

 with so sharp a rapture that they are out of sight at once. 

 Others scud along under so swift a wind that they can- 

 not be followed. But fortune favors patience. Here 

 at last is one that is off before a light breeze, and is 

 hugging the ground at about the height of a man's face. 

 And there, too, goes the man, following her across the 

 meadow at a brisk run, his head turned to one side, his 

 eyes fixed on what seems vacancy to yonder ploughmen, 

 who have stopped their teams to gaze in wonder and 

 debate the question of his sanity ! Nevertheless, he 

 has seen something which sane people will be glad to 

 learn. 



As the spiderling vaults upward, by a swift motion 

 the body is turned back downward, the ray of floating 

 threads is separated from the spinnerets and grasped by 

 the feet, which also by deft and rapid movements weave 

 a tiny cradle or net of delicate lines, to which the claws 

 cling. At the same moment a second silken filament is 

 ejected and floats out behind, leaving the body of the 

 little voyager balanced on its meshy basket between 

 that and the first filament, which now streams up from 

 the front. Thus our aeronaut's balloon is complete, and 

 she sits or hangs in the middle of it, drifting whither 

 the wind may carry her. 



She is not wholly at the mercy of the breeze, however, 

 for she has an ingenious mode of bringing herself to 

 earth. When the human aeronaut wishes to descend, 

 he contracts his balloon's surface and lessens its buoy- 

 ancy by letting out its gas. The spider acts upon the 

 same principle, by drawing in the filaments that buoy 

 her up and give sailage surface to the wind. Working 

 hand over hand, as one may say, she pulls down the 



188 



