Part 28
Quatremer Disjonval, a Frenchman by birth, was an adjutant-general in Holland, and took an active part on the side of the Dutch patriots when they revolted against the Stadtholder. On the arrival of the Prussian army under the Duke of Brunswick, he was immediately taken, tried, and, having been condemned to twenty-five years’ imprisonment, was incarcerated in a dungeon at Utrecht, where he remained eight years. During this long confinement, by many curious observations upon his sole companions, Spiders, he discovered that they were in the highest degree sensitive of approaching changes in the atmosphere, and that their retirement and reappearance, their weaving and general habits, were intimately connected with the changes of the weather. In the reading of these living barometers he became wonderfully accurate, so much so, that he could prognosticate the approach of severe weather from ten to fourteen days before it set in, which is proven by the following remarkable fact, which led to his release: “When the troops of the French republic overran Holland in the winter of 1794, and kept pushing forward over the ice, a sudden and unexpected thaw, in the early part of December, threatened the destruction of the whole army unless it was instantly withdrawn. The French generals were thinking seriously of accepting a sum offered by the Dutch, and withdrawing their troops, when Disjonval, who hoped that the success of the republican army might lead to his release, used every exertion, and at length succeeded in getting a letter conveyed to the French general in 1795, in which he pledged himself, from the peculiar actions of the Spiders, of whose movements he was enabled to judge with perfect accuracy, that within fourteen days there would commence a most severe frost, which would make the French masters of all the rivers, and afford them sufficient time to complete and make sure of the conquest they had commenced, before it should be followed by a thaw. The commander of the French forces believed his prognostication, and persevered. The cold weather, which Disjonval had predicted, made its appearance in twelve days, and with such intensity, that the ice over the rivers and canals became capable of bearing the heaviest artillery. On the 28th of January, 1795, the French army entered Utrecht in triumph; and Quatremer Disjonval, who had watched the habits of his Spiders with so much intelligence and success, was, as a reward for his ingenuity, released from prison.”[1137]
In Bartholomæus, De Proprietatibus Rerum (printed by Th. Berthelet, 27th Henry VIII.), lib. xviii. fol. 314, speaking of Pliny, we read: “Also he saythe, spynners (Spiders) ben tokens of divynation and of knowing what wether shal fal, for oft by weders that shal fal, some spin and weve higher or lower. Also he saythe, that multytude of spynners is token of moche reyne.”[1138]
Willsford, in his Nature’s Secrets, p. 131, tells us: “Spiders creep out of their holes and narrow receptacles against wind or rain; Minerva having made them sensible of an approaching storm.”[1139]
Hone, in his Every Day Book, also mentions that from Spiders prognostications as to the weather may be drawn; and gives the following instructions to read this animal-barometer: “If the weather is likely to become rainy, windy, or in other respects disagreeable, they fix the terminating filaments, on which the whole web is suspended, unusually short; and in this state they await the influence of a temperature which is remarkably variable. On the contrary, if the terminating filaments are uncommonly long, we may, in proportion to their length, conclude that the weather will be serene, and continue so at least for ten or twelve days. But if the Spiders be totally indolent, rain generally succeeds; though, on the other hand, their activity during rain is the most certain proof that it will be only of short duration, and followed with fair and constant weather. According to further observations, the Spiders regularly make some alterations in their webs or nets every twenty-four hours; if these changes take place between the hours of six and seven in the evening, they indicate a clear and pleasant night.”[1140]
Pausanias tells us that after the slaughter at Chæronea, the Thebans were obliged to place a guard within the walls of their city; but which, however, after the death of Philip, and during the reign of Alexander, they drove out. For this action, this historian continues, it was that Divinity gave them tokens in the webs of Spiders of the destruction that awaited them. For, during the battle at Leuctra, the Spiders in the temple of Ceres Thesmophoros wove white webs about the doors; but when Alexander and the Macedonians attacked their dominions, their webs were found to be black.[1141]
It was thought by the Classical Ancients and the old English unlucky to kill Spiders; and prognostications were made from their manner of weaving their webs.[1142] It is still thought unlucky to injure these animals.
Park has the following note in his copy of Bourne and Brande’s Popular Antiquities, p. 93: “Small Spiders, termed _money-spinners_, are held by many to prognosticate good luck, if they are not destroyed or injured, or removed from the person on whom they are first observed.”
In Teviotdale, Scotland, “when Spiders creep on one’s clothes, it is viewed as betokening good luck; and to destroy them is equivalent to throwing stones at one’s own head.”[1143]
In Maryland, this superstition is thus expressed: If you kill a Spider upon your clothing, you destroy the presents they are then weaving for you.
In the Secret Memoirs of Mr. Duncan Campbell, p. 60, in the chapter of omens, we read that “others have thought themselves secure of receiving money, if by chance a little Spider fell upon their clothes.”[1144]
“When a Spider is found upon your clothes, or about your person,” says a writer in the Notes and Queries,[1145] “it signifies that you will shortly receive some money. Old Fuller, who was a native of Northamptonshire, thus quaintly moralizes this superstition: ‘When a Spider is found upon your clothes, we used to say some money is coming toward us. The moral is this: such who imitate the industry of that contemptible creature may, by God’s blessing, weave themselves into wealth and procure a plentiful estate.’”[1146]
A South Northamptonshire superstition of the present day is, that, in order to propitiate money-spinners, they must be thrown over the left shoulder.[1147]
It is most probable that Euclio, in Plautus’ Aulularia, would not suffer the Spiders to be molested because they were considered to bring good luck.
_Staphyla._ Here in our house there’s nothing else for thieves to gain, so filled is it with emptiness and cobwebs.
_Euclio._ You hag of hags, I choose those cobwebs to be watched for me.[1148]
A superstition prevails among us that if a Spider approaches, either by crawling toward or descending from the ceiling to a person, it forebodes good to such person; and, on the contrary, if the Spider runs hurriedly away, it is an omen of bad luck. But if the Spider be a poisonous one, or a Fly-catcher, and it approaches you, some evil is about to befall you, which to avert you must cross your heart thrice.
If you kill a Spider crossing your path, you will have bad luck.
A Spider should not be killed in your house, but out of doors; if in the house, our country people say you are “pulling down your house.”
If a Spider drops down from its web or from a tree directly in front of a person, such person will see before night a dear friend.
A variety of this superstition is, that, if the Spider be white, it foretells the acquaintance of a friend; and if black, an enemy.
In the Netherlands, a Spider seen in the morning forebodes good luck; in the afternoon, bad luck.[1149]
There is a common saying at Winchester, England, that no Spider will hang its web on the roof of Irish oak in the chapel or cloisters;[1150] and the cicerone, who shows the cathedral church at St. David’s, points out to the visitor that the choir is roofed with Irish oak, which does not harbor Spiders, though cobwebs are plentifully seen in other parts of the cathedral.[1151] This superstition (for it certainly is nothing more)[1152] probably originated with the old story of St. Patrick’s having exorcised and banished all kinds of vermin from Ireland.
The same virtue of repelling Spiders is attributed also to chestnut and cedar wood;[1153] and the old roof at Turner’s Court, in Gloucestershire, four miles from Bath, which is of chestnut, is said to be perfectly free from cobwebs;[1154] hence also are the cloisters of New College, and of Christ’s Church, in England, roofed with chestnut.[1155]
A small Spider of a red color, called a Tainct in England, is accounted, by the country people, a deadly poison to cows and horses; so when any of their cattle die suddenly and swell up, to account for their deaths, they say they have “licked a Tainct.” Browne thinks this is, most probably, but a vulgar error.[1156]
It is a very ancient and curious belief that there exists a remarkable enmity between the Spider and serpents,[1157] and more especially between the Spider and the toad; and many curious stories are told of the combats between these animals. The following, related by Erasmus, which he asserts he had directly from one of the spectators, is probably the most remarkable, and we insert it in the words of Dr. James: “A person (a monk)[1158] lying along upon the floor of his chamber in the summer-time to sleep in a supine posture, when a toad, creeping out of some green rushes, brought just before in to adorn the chimney, gets upon his face and with his feet sits across his lips. To force off the toad, says the historian, would have been accounted death to the sleeper; and to leave her there, very cruel and dangerous; so that upon consultation, it was concluded to find out a Spider, which, together with her web and the window she was fastened to, was brought carefully, and so contrived as to be held perpendicularly to the man’s face; which was no sooner done but the Spider, discovering his enemy, let himself down and struck in his dart, afterward betaking himself up again to his web: the toad swelled, but as yet kept his station. The second wound is given quickly after by the Spider, upon which he swells yet more, but remained alive still. The Spider, coming down again by his thread, gives the third blow, and the toad, taking off his feet from over the man’s mouth, fell off dead.”[1159]
The following cosmogony is found in the sacred writings of the Pundits of India: A certain immense Spider was the origin, the first cause of all things; which, drawing the matter from its own bowels, wove the web of this universe, and disposed it with wonderful art; she, in the mean time, sitting in the center of her work, feels and directs the motion of every part, till at length, when she has pleased herself sufficiently in ordering and contemplating this web, she draws all the threads she had spun out again into herself; and, having absorbed them, the universal nature of all creatures vanishes into nothing.[1160]
Among the Chululahs of our western coast, Capt. Stuart informs me there is a vague superstition that the Spider is connected with the origin of the world. To what extent this curious notion prevails, or anything more concerning it, I have been unable to learn.
The natives of Guinea, says Bosman, believe that the first men were created by the large black Spider, which is so common in their country, and called in their jargon “Ananse;” nor is there any reasoning, continues this traveler, a great number of them out of it.[1161] Barbot also remarks that, in the belief of the Guinea negroes, the black Ananse created the first man.[1162]
That the Spider should be connected with the origin of the world and man in the several beliefs of the Hindoos, Chululahs, and negroes, races so widely different and separated from one another, is a coincidence most remarkable.
A large and hideous species of Spider, said to be only found in the palace of Hampton Court, England, is known by the name of the “Cardinals.” This name has been given them from a superstitious belief that the spirits of Cardinal Wolsey and his retinue still haunt the palace in their shape.[1163]
In running across the carpet in an evening, with the shade cast from their large bodies by the light of the lamp or candle, these “Cardinals” have been mistaken for mice, and have occasioned no little alarm to some of the more nervous inhabitants of the palace.[1164]
The story of the gigantic Spider found in the Church of St. Eustace, at Paris, in Chambers’ Miscellany, is related as follows: It is told that the sexton of this church was surprised at very often discovering a certain lamp extinguished in the morning, notwithstanding it had been duly replenished with oil the preceding evening. Curious to learn the cause of this mysterious circumstance, he kept watch several evenings, and was at last gratified by the discovery. During the night he observed a Spider, of enormous dimensions, come down the chain by which the lamp was suspended, drink up the oil, and, when gorged to satiety, slowly retrace its steps to a recess in the fretwork above. A similar Spider is said to have been found, in 1751, in the cathedral church of Milan. It was observed to feed also on oil. When killed, it weighed four pounds! and was afterward sent to the imperial museum at Vienna.[1165]
The following remarkable anecdote is translated from the French: “M. F---- de Saint Omer laid on the chimney-piece of his chamber, one evening on going to bed, a small shirt-pin of gold, the head of which represented a fly. Next day, M. F---- would have taken his pin from the place where he had put it, but the trinket had disappeared. A servant-maid, who had only been in M. F----’s service a few days, was solely suspected of having carried off the pin, and sent away. But, at length, M. F----’s sister, putting up some curtains, was very much surprised to find the lost pin suspended from the ceiling in a Spider’s web! And thus was the disappearance of the _bijou_ explained: A Spider, deceived by the figure of the fly which the pin presented, had drawn it into his web.”[1166]
In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, it is stated that “Spiders do shun all such wals as run to ruine, or are like to be ouerthrowne.”[1167]
A Spider hanging from a tree is said to have made both Turenne and Gustavus Adolphus shudder![1168]
M. Zimmerman relates the following instance of antipathy to Spiders: “Being one day in an English company,” says he, “consisting of persons of distinction, the conversation happened to fall on antipathies. The greater part of the company denied the reality of them, and treated them as old women’s tales; but I told them that antipathy was a real disease. Mr. William Matthew, son of the Governor of Barbados, was of my opinion, and, as he added that he himself had an extreme antipathy to Spiders, he was laughed at by the whole company. I showed them, however, that this was a real impression of his mind, resulting from a mechanical effect. Mr. John Murray, afterward Duke of Athol, took it into his head to make, in Mr. Matthew’s presence, a Spider of black wax, to try whether this antipathy would appear merely on the sight of the insect. He went out of the room, therefore, and returned with a bit of black wax in his hand, which he kept shut. Mr. Matthew, who in other respects was a sedate and amiable man, imagining that his friend really held a Spider, immediately drew his sword in a great fury, retired with precipitation to the wall, leaned against it, as if to run him through, and sent forth horrible cries. All the muscles of his face were swelled, his eye-balls rolled in their sockets, and his whole body was as stiff as a post. We immediately ran to him in great alarm, and took his sword from him, assuring him at the same time that Mr. Murray had nothing in his hand but a bit of wax, and that he himself might see it on the table where it was placed. He remained some time in this spasmodic state, and I was really afraid of the consequences. He, however, gradually recovered, and deplored the dreadful passion into which he had been thrown, and from which he still suffered. His pulse was exceedingly quick and full, and his whole body was covered with a cold sweat. After taking a sedative, he was restored to his former tranquillity, and his agitation was attended with no other bad consequences.”[1169]
In Batavia, New York, on the evening of the 13th of September, 1834, Hon. David E. Evans, agent of the Holland Land Company, discovered in his wine-cellar a live striped snake, about nine inches in length, suspended between two shelves, by the tail, by Spiders’ web. From the shelves being two feet apart, and the position of the web, the witnesses were of opinion the snake could not have fallen by accident into it, and thus have become inextricably entangled, but that it had been actually captured, and drawn up so that its head could not reach the shelf below by about an inch, by Spiders, and of a species much smaller than the common fly, three of which at night were seen feeding upon it, while it was yet alive.
Hon. S. Cummings, first Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in his county, and also Postmaster of Batavia, and Mr. D. Lyman Beecher have described this phenomenon, and given the names of quite a number of gentlemen who witnessed it, and will testify to the accuracy of their accounts. Says Mr. Cummings: “Upon a critical examination through a magnifying glass, the following curious facts appeared. The mouth of the snake was fast tied up, by a great number of threads, wound around it so tight that he could not run out his tongue. His tail was tied in a knot, so as to leave a small loop, or ring, through which the cord was fastened; and the end of the tail, above this loop, to the length of something over half an inch, was lashed fast to the cord, to keep it from slipping. As the snake hung, the length of the cord, from his tail to the focus to which it was fastened, was about six inches; and a little above the tail, there was observed a round ball, about the size of a pea. Upon inspection, this appeared to be a green fly, around which the cord had been wound as a windlass, with which the snake had been hauled up; and a great number of threads were fastened to the cord above, and to the rolling side of this ball to keep it from unwinding, and letting the snake down. The cord, therefore, must have been extended from the focus of this web to the shelf below where the snake was lying when first captured; and being made fast to the loop in his tail, the fly was carried and fastened about midway to the side of the cord. And then by rolling this fly over and over, it wound the cord around it, both from above and below, until the snake was raised to the proper height, and then was fastened, as before mentioned.
“In this situation the suffering snake hung, alive, and furnished a continued feast for several large Spiders, until Saturday forenoon, the 16th, when some persons, by playing with him, broke the web above the focus, so as to let part of his body rest upon the shelf below. In this situation he lingered, the Spiders taking no notice of him, until Thursday, eight days after he was discovered, when some large ants were found devouring his body.”[1170]
At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Mr. Lesley read the following extract from a letter written by Mr. E. A. Spring, of Eagleswood, N. J.:
“I was over on the South Amboy shore with a friend, walking in a swampy wood, where a dyke was made, some three feet wide, when we discovered in the middle of this ditch a large black Spider making very queer motions for a Spider, and, on examination, it proved that he had _caught a fish_.
“He was biting the fish, just on the forward side of the dorsal fin, with a deadly gripe, and the poor fish was swimming round and round slowly, or twisting its body as if in pain. The head of its black enemy was sometimes almost pulled under water, but never entirely, for the fish did not seem to have had enough strength, but moved its fins as if exhausted, and often rested. At last it swam under a floating leaf at the shore, and appeared to be trying, by going under that, to scrape off the Spider, but without effect. They then got close to the bank, when suddenly the long black legs of the Spider came up out of the water, where they had possibly been embracing a fish (I have seen Spiders seize flies with all their legs at once), reached out behind, and fastened upon the irregularities of the side of the ditch. The Spider then commenced tugging to get his prize up the bank. My friend stayed to watch them, while I went to the nearest house for a wide-mouthed bottle. During the six or eight minutes that I was away, the Spider had drawn the fish entirely out of the water, when they had both fallen in again, the bank being nearly perpendicular. There had been a great struggle; and now, on my return, the fish was already hoisted head first more than half his length out on the land. The fish was very much exhausted, hardly making any movement, and the Spider had evidently gained the victory, and was slowly and steadily tugging him up. He had not once quitted his hold during the quarter to half an hour that we had watched them. He held, with his head toward the fish’s tail, and pulled him up at an angle of forty-five degrees by stepping backward.... The Spider was three-fourths of an inch long, and weighed fourteen grains; the fish was three and one-fourth inches long, and weighed sixty-six grains.”[1171]
The following interesting account of the rarely-witnessed phenomenon of a shower of webs of the Gossamer-spider, _Aranea obtextrix_, is given us by Mr. White: “On the 21st of September, 1741, being intent on field diversions, I rose,” says this gentleman, “before daybreak; when I came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully, that the whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets, drawn one over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hood-winked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the incumbrances from their faces with their fore-feet.... As the morning advanced, the sun became bright and warm, and the day turned out one of the most lovely ones which no season but the autumn produces; cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the south of France itself.
“About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes of rags; some near an inch broad, and five or six long. On every side, as the observer turned his eyes, might he behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like stars.”[1172]