THE SPIDER. 



453 



wound it makes. If, however, the fly be not 

 entirely immeshed, the spider patiently waits, 

 without appearing until its prey has fatigued 

 itself by its struggles to obtain its liberty ; for 

 if the ravager should appear in all its terrors 

 while the prey is but half involved, a despe- 

 rate effort might give it force enough to get 

 free. If the spider has fasted fora long time, 

 it then drags the fly immediately into its hole, 

 and devours it ; but if there has been plenty 

 of game, and the animal be no way pressed 

 by hunger, it then gives the fly two or three 

 turns in its web, so as completely to immesh 

 it, and there leaves it impotently to struggle 

 until the little tyrant comes to its appetite. 

 Why the spider should at one time kill its 

 prey, and at another suffer it to struggle in 

 the toils for several hours together, I am not 

 able to say ; perhaps it only likes its prey 

 newly killed, and therefore delays to put the 

 captive to death until it is to be eaten. 



It has been the opinion of some philoso- 

 phers, that the spider was in itself both male 

 and female ; but Lister has been able to dis- 

 tinguish the sexes, and to perceive that the 

 males are much less in size than the females. 

 But this is not the chief peculiarity ; for, dif- 

 ferent from all other animals, except the fish 

 called the -Ray, it has its instruments of gen- 

 eration placed in the fore arms, which have 

 been already described. When these ani- 

 mals copulate, they for some time seize each 

 other with their legs and arms, then appear 

 the instruments of generation in the male, as 

 if bursting out from the points of its fore-feet, 

 and are inserted into the receptacle beneath 

 the body of the female. 



The female generally lays from nine hun- 

 dred to a thousand eggs in a season ; they are 

 of a bluish colour, speckled with black, and 

 separated from each other by a glutinous sub- 

 stance, not unlike frog-spawn water. These 

 eggs are large or small in proportion to the 

 size of the animal that produces them. In 

 some they are as large as a grain of mustard- 

 seed ; in others they are scarcely visible. The 

 female never begins to lay till she be two 

 years old at the least, and her first brood is 

 never so numerous as when she has come to 

 her greatest maturity. 



When the number of eggs which the spider 

 has brought forth have remained for an hour 

 or two to dry after exclusion, the little animal 

 then prepares to make them a bag, where 

 they are to be hatched until they leave the shell. 

 For this purpose she spins a web four or five 

 times stronger than that made for catching 

 flies ; and besides, lines it within-side by a 

 down, which she plucks from her own breast. 

 This bag, when completed, is as thick as pa- 

 per, is smooth within-side, but rougher with- 

 out. Within this they deposit their eggs ; 



and it is almost incredible to relate the concern 

 and industry which they bestow in the pre- 

 servation of it. They stick it by means of 

 their glutinous fluid to the end of their body ; 

 so that the animal, when thus loaded, appears 

 as if she had one body placed behind another. 

 If this bag be separated from her by any acci- 

 dent, she employs all her assiduity to stick it 

 again in its former situation, and seldom aban- 

 dons her treasure but with her life. When the 

 young ones are excluded from their shells, 

 within the bag, they remain for some time in 

 their confinement, until the female, instinc- 

 tively knowing their maturity, bites open their 

 prison, and sets them free. But her parental 

 care does not terminate with this exclusion ; 

 she receives them upon her back for some time, 

 until they have strength to provide for them- 

 selves, when they leave her never to return, and 

 each begins a separate manufactory of its own. 

 The young ones begin to spin when they can 

 scarcely be discerned ; and prepare for a life 

 of plunder before they have strength to over- 

 come. Indeed, Nature seems to have formed 

 them in every respect for a life of hostility. No 

 other insect is possessed of such various powers 

 of assault and defence ; and they are able to 

 destroy animals ten times bigger than them- 

 selves. Even after a severe defeat, they 

 quickly recover of their wounds ; and as for 

 their legs, they consider the Iq^s of them as 

 but a small misfortune, as they grow again 

 very speedily to their former magnitude. 



Thus there is no insect to which they are 

 not an enemy ; but what is more barbarous 

 still, spiders are the enemies of each other. 

 M. Reaumur, who was fond of making experi- 

 ments upon insects, tried to turn the labours 

 of the spider to human advantage, and actually 

 made a pair of gloves from their webs. 



For this purpose, he collected a large num- 

 ber of those insects together : he took care to 

 have them constantly supplied with flies, and 

 the ends of young feathers, fresh picked 

 from chickens and pigeons, which being full 

 of blood, are a diet that spiders are particularly 

 fond of. But, notwithstanding all his care, 

 he was soon convinced that it was impractic- 

 able to rear them, since they were of such a 

 malignant nature, that they could never be 

 brought to live in society; but instead of their 

 usual food, chose to devour each other. Indeed, 

 were it practicable to reconcile them to each 

 other, it would require too much attendance 

 to rear up a sufficient number to make the 

 project any way useful. Their thread is four, 

 if not five times finer than that of the silk- 

 worm ; so that, upon the smallest calculation, 

 there must have been sixty thousand spiders 

 to make a single pound of silk. That which 

 Reaumur made use of was only the web in 

 which they deposited their eggs, which is five 



