OOTOBEK 237 



Dufour, Simon, and a host of other specialists, have by no 

 means exhausted the field — a fact which might easily dis- 

 courage more superficial observers. 



Nevertheless, it is impossible for anybody who gives 

 more thp,n the most careless attention to animated nature 

 to fail to take note ot some incidents in spider life. There 

 is no commoner object than a spider's web, yet what is 

 there in nature that more completely bafiles human con- 

 jecture than the nature and degree of the intellect re- 

 quisite for the construction of such an admirable snare ? 

 What is more puzzling than the union in one tiny 

 organism of mental characteristics so divergent as tender 

 solicitude for offspring and bloodthirst almost without 

 parallel towards creatures of the same or different species? 



XXXVII 



Some of the most complex and delicate performances 

 of the lower animals appear to be unconscious 



TliG Web 



and automatic. The silk- worm, once only, and 

 that during an immature stage of existence, spins an 

 elaborate cocoon, which no amount of practice could 

 improve. The evidence of design is unmistakable; but 

 who shall pronounce the builder to be also the architect ? 

 At a certain period of its growth the motor nerves of this 

 sluggish worm set in action specialised mach^ery to work 

 up material automatically stored ; but the action must be 

 wholly independent of the creature's volition. It must 

 spin, whether it would or no, and it can exercise no dis- 

 cretion in the style or shape of its cocoon. 



In the case of spiders, one has to consider the action of 

 a mature adult instead of a larva ; yet the process seems 



