A MIRACLE OF PATIENCE. 
225 
But the masterpiece of the genus is seen, especially in Corsica, in 
the laborious Mygale. Its residence is a kind of well, industriously 
walled round, with smooth and polished sides, and a double tapestry, — 
a coarse strong hanging on the earthward front, and a fine satiny hang¬ 
ing in the interior. The orifice of the well is closed by a door. This 
door is a disc, much larger at the top than at the bottom, and let into 
a groove in such a manner as to shut hermetically. The disc, which is 
not more than three lines thick, contains, nevertheless, thirty double 
woofs, and between the woofs intervene the same number of coats or 
layers of earth,—so that the entire door is really composed of sixty 
doors. Here, in truth, is a miracle of patience; but observe, too, the 
ingenuity,—all these doors of network and earth clamp into one 
another. The thread-doors at one point are prolonged to the wall, 
fastening the door to the wall as by a hinge. This door opens out¬ 
wardly when the spider raises it to go forth, and closes by its own 
weight. But the enemy might eventually succeed in opening it. 
This has been anticipated. On the side opposite the hinge some small 
holes are worked in the door; to these the spider clings, and becomes 
a living bolt.* 
What would happen if this astonishing artisan, placed in peculiar 
and trying circumstances (like the bees under Huber’s experiments), 
# 
were called upon to vary its art and devise a novelty? Could it do so ? 
Has it the intelligence, the resource, and, at need, the power of inno¬ 
vation which the superior insects display under certain conditions ? It 
would be worth while to make the experiment. This, at all events, is 
certain, that the simple Epeiras (our garden-spiders) know very well, 
when deprived of the necessaiy space for extending their geometrical 
curtain, how to construct one of irregular design, decreasing in propor¬ 
tion to the restrictions of their area. 
Experiments, moreover, are difficult. The spider is so nervous, that 
the fear which makes it an artist can also paralyze and utterly con¬ 
found it. Its. web alone gives it courage. Out of its web, everything 
makes it tremble. In captivity, having no web, it actually flees before 
its prey, and has not the resolution to confront a fly. 
* See the works of Audouin and Walckenaer. 
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