NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



ager over the water as she stands erect with outspread 

 legs upon the surface-fihn. 



The recent bicentenary of the philosopher and theolo- 

 gian Dr. Jonathan Edwards suggests that the name of 

 this great man is associated with the habits here re- 

 viewed. While a boy in his thirteenth year he was led, 

 by his unaided observations, to anticipate in their main 

 features some of the discoveries of our own time. He 

 hit upon a rudely accurate division of the several groups 

 of spiders. He noticed that the ballooning habit is 

 associated with the bridge-lines stretched from tree to 

 tree across roads, between fences and like positions. 

 He appears to have seen that the spider, while engaged 

 in casting out its threads, often swings free in a little 

 basket of gossamer lines held between its bunched feet 

 — an observation which the author long supposed orig- 

 inal with himself. He even defined accurately the 

 manner in which the spider's web is formed. He per- 

 ceived that the balloonist-spider had no direction of its 

 frail aerial vessel after it had once embarked, but went 

 perforce at the will of the wind, and disembarked wher- 

 ever its air-ship was entangled. And he correctly dis- 

 cerned and explained the theory of equilibrium by 

 which the spider navigates the air. 



In view of these facts, one may well echo the language 

 of Professor Benjamin Silliman, one of the most eminent 

 of America's men of science : " The observations record- 

 ed by him present a very curious and interesting proof 

 of philosophic attention in a boy of twelve years. Had 

 he devoted himself to physical science, he might have 

 added another Newton to the extraordinary age in 

 which he commenced his career; for his star was just 

 rising as Newton^s was going down." 



196 



