CHAPTER. LY: 
WEATHER PROGNOSTICATIONS—SUNDRY SUPERSTITIONS— 
COMMERCIAL VALUE OF SPIDER SILK. 
T 
THERE is perhaps no opinion concerning spiders that is more widely 
disseminated and popularly believed than that they have the power to prog- 
nosticate weather changes. As long ago as the days of Pliny the 
Alen notion was entertained. That author affirmed that prognostica- 
nee. tions may be based upon the spider’s behavior. For example, 
when a river is about to swell the spider will suspend its web 
higher than usual. In calm weather these creatures do not spin their 
ordinary webs, but when it is cloudy they do so, and therefore a great 
number of cobwebs is a sure sign of rainy weather.! 
An interesting and romantic incident, based upon this supposed faculty, 
is associated with the wars succeeding the French Revolution. Quatremer 
Disjonval, a Frenchman by birth, was an adjutant general in Holland who 
took an active part on the side of the Dutch patriots when they revolted 
against the Stadtholder. It happened to him to be captured and con- 
demned to twenty-five years imprisonment at Utrecht. Here for eight 
years he relieved the tedious confinement by many curious observations 
upon his cell companions, the spiders. Among other matters he discovered 
that they were in the highest degree sensitive to approaching changes in 
the atmosphere, and that their retirement and reappearance, their weaving 
and general habits were intimately connected with weather changes. He 
became wonderfully accurate in reading these living barometers, so much 
so that he could prognosticate the approach of clear weather from ten to 
fourteen days before it’ set in. 
This ability served him a high advantage when the troops of the French 
republic overran Holland in the winter of 1794. They kept pushing for- 
ward over the ice with the assurance of ultimate victory, when a 
Quatre- sudden thaw in early December threatened the destruction of the 
mer Dis- e 7 : fa - 
jonval whole army unless it were instantly withdrawn. The French 
generals were seriously thinking of accepting a sum offered by 
the Dutch to withdraw their troops, when Disjonyal sent them a message 
advising against such action. He had hoped that the success of the repub- 
lican army might lead to his release, and therefore sent a letter to ths 
‘Pliny, Natural Eiars of Animals, Chapter XI., suction xxiv. 
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