INTENSE EXCITEMENT 215 



waited for just that wind, since for several days they 

 had been coming up from the moist green grass of a 

 valley to the higher, drier land on its border on the 

 north side, and there they remained congregated in 

 incredible numbers until the south wind sprang up 

 and took them away. Looking closely at them, they 

 appeared to be in an intense state of excitement. 

 Every spider was trying to get away from the others 

 to some point above them, and would no sooner throw 

 up a thread than it would strike another thrown at 

 the same instant, and the little creature, knowing 

 the cause of the obstruction, would turn upon and 

 savagely attack the other spider, and drive him off. 

 Every minute one could see a score of incidents of 

 this kind, and in spite of this trouble numbers were 

 continually getting away. 



How marvellous it seemed that these minute beings, 

 averaging about a tenth of an inch in length, though 

 some were much larger and they were of at least five 

 or six different species, appeared to know so well 

 just what to do and how to do it. The difficulty they 

 had in getting off seemed to make them desperate, 

 as if they also knew that every time they failed to 

 rise they were so much the poorer in spinning material 

 and in that dynamic energy with which these atomies 

 are supposed to be charged, which enables them to 

 dart out a line of eight to twelve inches long to lift 

 them from the earth. Every failure thus diminished 

 their chances of getting away, seeing that it was 

 necessary in each case to cut the line and create a new 

 one. I watched their efforts for two days, and then it 



