NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



struggling insect, which is meanwhile revolved by the 

 captor's fore legs and palps. The motions are so 

 rapid that one hardly follows them; and ere he has 

 well grasped the situation the captive is swathed in a 

 white silken bag, and hangs there in the gap in the 

 broken web made by its struggles, like a canvas-covered 

 ham hung to a cellar rafter. 



Poor grasshopper! — or, let us say rather, poor locust! 

 For since the creature must die and be eaten, let it 

 perish under its own name. And now, see how deftly 

 Argiope swings her prey in its silken wrapping from 

 point to point until she has reached her central shield! 

 Thereto she lashes it and settles quietly to her feast. 

 But scarcely has she well begun ere there is another 

 ring at her door-bell. In other words, a large fly has 

 struck another part of the orb, and the news "thrills 

 along the line" to the central shield. In a trice Argiope 

 is upon it. It is enswathed, and hangs there by a 

 short cord in a small silken sack — a trussed-up fly. 



Admirably done! No cow-boy ever flung lasso more 

 effectively or more thoroughly tied up and disabled his 

 victim's limbs. And the creature manufactures her 

 ropes as she goes ! Thus done, Argiope returns leisurely 

 to her feast, leaving the fly in reserve as a sort of dessert. 

 One feels a touch of j^ity for these unfortunate insects. 

 But consider, in a utilitarian spirit, what a vast ser- 

 vice our Orange Argiope and her kind are conferring 

 upon man by thus acting as nature's checks upon an 

 increase of insect life that would soon make human 

 life miserable if not impossible. For without such 

 natural helps man could ill contend with the innumer- 

 able progeny of pygmy insects who hold the utmost 



antipodes of "race suicide." 



248 



