ORANGE ARGIOPE 



lating orb touches some thread of memory along which 

 there runs from the loci of the brain cells a record of 

 the past, a vision of a country home, or a rural picnic- 

 ground, or a school-house in its grove by a spring. A 

 cable swing is there, hung to a high branch of a wide- 

 spreading oak. And you remember a brown-haired lass 

 — whose laughing eyes and rosy cheeks you love to 

 think upon — en^roned on the notched-board seat be- 

 neath, while you, with feet on either side of her and 

 close against the rope, by alternately straightening and 

 bending your legs and arms, "worked up" the swing. 

 How high you go, and how fast! — till the maiden's 

 fluttering skirts seem to sing in the rush of the swing as 

 it rises and falls. Or mayhap you were yourself that 

 laughing-eyed girl who had the nerve and the skill to 

 "work up" the swing with some playfellow seated 

 below ? 



Ah me! But what has all this to do with your 

 Orange Argiope vibrating her big web among the golden- 

 rods? Nothing, in truth, if you do not see it. Only 

 there came a passing fancy that she "works up" her 

 oscillating orb, hung by its silken cables to the yellow, 

 drooping plants, somewhat as we were wont to do the 

 big swing in those days upon which some of us already 

 look through a far vista. 



But why does the spider do this? We have often 

 asked her that, in our silent naturalist way, and thus 

 it seems to us the answer should run : The prime motive 

 of animal life is food; and one comes to think that an 

 insect, especially if it be a strong one, were it to strike 

 that outspread net, would have less chance to break 

 into freedom — scant as that might be — when involved 

 more and more closely within the beaded meshes of the 



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