UNDER GENIAL SKIES 



tained its normal size, but not yet its normal thick- 

 ness and strength. It was much more artfully con- 

 cealed than the old one had been. The builder 

 had so completely covered it with small dry twigs 

 about the size of an ordinary pin, and had so woven 

 these into it, standing a few of them on end, that 

 my eye was baffled. I knew to an inch where to 

 look for the door, and yet it seemed to have van- 

 ished. By feeling the ground over with a small 

 stick I found a yielding place which proved to be 

 the new unfinished door. Day after day the door 

 grew heavier and stronger. The builder worked 

 at it on the under side, adding new layers of silk. 

 There is always a layer of the soil worked into the 

 door to give it weight and strength. 



Spiders, like reptiles, can go months without 

 food. The young, according to Fabre, go seven 

 months without eating. They do not grow, but 

 they are very active; they expend energy without 

 any apparent means of keeping up the supply. 

 How do they do it? They absorb it directly from 

 the sun, Fabre thinks, which means that here is 

 an animal between which and the organic world 

 the vegetable chlorophyl plays no part, but which 

 can take at first-hand, from the sun, the energy of 

 life. If this is true, and it seems to be so, it is 

 most extraordinary. 



In view of the sex of the extraordinary spider I 

 have been considering, it is interesting to remember 



139 



