CHAPTER X.
THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.
The spider greatly surpasses all other solitary-living insects. It not only possesses its nest, its ambush, its temporary hunting-station; it has (or, at least, certain species have) a regular house, a house of a very complex description: a vestibule, and a sleeping-chamber, and a mode of egress in the rear; and, finally, a door which is a very triumph of art, for it closes of itself, falling back by its own weight.
The door! It is this which is wanting even in the grand cities of the bees and the ants; these industrial republics have never hitherto attained to so lofty a climax.
The ants have just reached the point at which most of our African tribes have halted. Every evening they shut up their dwelling-places with immense labour--renewed daily--and by a little, unsubstantial lattice-work, which does not relieve them from the necessity of planting sentinels. It is true, however, that these great, valiant, and well-armed peoples have no fear of invasion, and, like Lacedæmon, need neither walls nor ditches. Their proud intrepidity has set limits to their industry.
On the other hand, the poor artisan which lives by itself, and is always exhausted by the incessant toil of spinning and weaving, cannot rely upon its valour. It has need, in certain countries and under certain alarming conditions, of profound ingenuity, and has discovered this little miracle of prudence and combination, which eclipses both the savage and the insect. I do not refer to the great animals, none of which, except the beaver, are very industrious.
In the neighbourhood of Lucerne we for the first time saw the house of the spider (the _Agelena_). It was a kind of sheath, and very well made, with a vestibule facing the south, which expanded outward like a funnel. This exterior portion, forming a little sunny retreat, was the snare and the citadel. The lady of the house stationed herself quite at the bottom of the funnel; but behind this very bottom, at the lower extremity of the case or sheath, was constructed a back apartment, small and very secure, in a white substantial cocoon. In this she trusted so completely, that while we detached the silken cables which moored the entire edifice to the bush, she made no attempt to escape. We had neither destroyed nor damaged, but simply detached the dwelling, and on the day following we found it repaired and moored to the bush on every side. The exposure was no longer so favourable; but, undoubtedly, the workman, in an advanced season of the year (in September, and under the Alps), did not possess the resources for recommencing this grand summer-work.
In the Brazilian forests a little spider has its case suspended exactly in the centre of its web; and thither it hurries at the slightest approach of danger, and has no sooner entered, says Swainson, than the door suddenly closes behind it by a spring.
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 hanging 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 outwardly 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.[O]
[Footnote O: See the works of Audouin and Walckenaër.]
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 innovation 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 necessary space for extending their geometrical curtain, how to construct one of irregular design, decreasing in proportion 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 confound 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.
Its miserable condition of passive expectancy fully explains its character. To wait, while acting, running, fighting, is to cheat both time and hunger; but to remain there immovable, to be unable to stir from fear of alarming your prey, to watch it coming nearer and nearer but eventually escaping, and to suffer from an empty stomach! To be a witness of the endless, heedless dances of the fly, which, in the sunbeam, amuses and balances itself for hours without responding to the avid prayers of the tempter which whispers, "Come, little one! Come, my darling!" is a terrible punishment, a series of hopes and disappointments.
It pursues its gay measure, and thinks nothing of the sufferer.
The fatal inquiry, "Shall I dine?" returns, and lacerates its bowels. Then comes the more ominous reflection: "If I do not dine to-day, no more thread! And far less, then, may I hope to dine to-morrow!"
From all this results a suffering, restless, but prodigiously wary and attentive being, which detects not only the slightest contact, but the slightest noise. The spider is only too sensitive. A very little disturbance seems to overthrow its self-control. It apparently faints; you see it suddenly fall from its position, struck down by fear.
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This sensitiveness, as you will readily believe, is especially displayed in the spider's maternal condition. However miserable and avaricious in its nature, it is tender, liberal, and generous towards its young. While the birds of prey--the winged hunters which have so many resources--drive away their young at a very early age, look upon them as greedy competitors, and force them by blows of their beaks to dwell afar from the domain which they reserve as their own, the spider is not contented with carrying its eggs in the cocoon, but, in certain species, nourishes them when living and greedy, guards them, bears them on its back; or else she makes them walk, holding them by a thread; if danger threatens, she draws in the thread, they leap upon her, and she saves them. If she cannot do so, she will perish. Some there are which, rather than abandon their offspring, will suffer themselves to be swallowed up in the gulf of the ant-lion. Others, of a slow species, which, when unable to save them, make no effort to escape, but allow themselves to be captured also.
Their nests are frequently masterpieces. At Interlaken, in Switzerland, I have admired their long soft tubes, warm in the interior, and well-lined,--externally, disguised with much skill by an artistic pell-mell of small bits of leaf, tiny twigs, and fragments of gray plaster, so as to melt perfectly into the colour of the wall supporting them. But this was nothing in comparison with a work of art which I have here at Fontainebleau.
On the 22nd of July 1857, I discovered in an outhouse a very pretty round basket, about an inch across, made of all kinds of materials, and, as it had nothing to fear from rain, without any cover. It was very gracefully suspended to a beam by some elegant silken threads, which I should call little hands, such as are possessed by the climbing plants. Within, brooding on its eggs with a constant incubation, might be seen a spider. It never stirred, except, perhaps, for a moment at night, in quest of food. Never was there any animal so timid. At the gentlest approaches fear made it fly, and almost fall. Once when we disturbed it a little abruptly, it was seized with such an excess of terror that it did not recover for an entire day. It sat for six weeks, and, but for these perturbations, would perhaps have remained much longer.
An admirable mother,--an ingenious and delicate artist,--before all things a female,--a female nervous and timid to the highest degree, this strange sensitive creature explained to me perfectly the very opposite sentiments with which the spider inspires us,--those of repulsion and attraction. We start away from it, and yet we draw near to it. It is so coarse, and yet, at the same time, so prodigiously sensitive! It breathes as we do. And the delicate tubercle which secretes its silk, like a milky cloud (as the microscope shows us), is the most feminine organ which exists, perhaps, in nature.
Alas, it is alone! Except a few species (mygales) in which the father renders some assistance to the mother, it expects no help. The male, after its moment of love, becomes, indeed, an enemy. Cruel consequences of misery! It perceives that its children are capable of furnishing it with food. But the mother, who is bigger than he, makes a similar reflection,--thinks that the eater is eatable,--and frequently crunches her spouse.
These atrocious events never happen, I am confident, in climates where ease and abundance do not deprave their natural disposition. But in our well-peopled countries, with game very rare, and competition of extreme violence, these unfortunates act towards one another like the wretched castaways on the raft of the _Medusa_.
A cruel tyrant, the stomach, dominates over all nature, and vanquishes even love. Passion, in an anxious and restless being like the spider, is very mistrustful. At the height of his devotion, the lean and feeble male dares only approach the majestic lady with a timid reverence and the utmost reserve. He advances, he retires, he watches; he seems to ask himself if he has at all succeeded in subduing the haughty creature. He resorts to the timid methods of a slow magnetism, and especially to an extreme patience. He puts little faith in the first signs, and does not willingly yield his confidence. And, finally, when the adored object shows herself sensible of his sincerity, and grows ardent in her expansion of soul, he does not so wholly trust in her but what he will escape, and fly with all his speed, at some sudden impulse, and under the influence of an indescribable panic.
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Such is the terrible idyl of the dusky lovers of our ceilings. Among our garden-spiders less suspicion seems to exist. Nature softens hearts, and rugged industrialism itself grows smoother in rustic life. We see some upon our trees which behave tolerably well to their husbands, and do not too often remember that they are competitors in the chase. They permit them to reside in the same locality, although a little apart, and keeping them at a distance. A light partition separates them. The princess consents that he may live under her roof, and on the ground-floor, while she lives on the first story,--keeping him below and in subjection, so that he may not presume to think himself the king, but only the _prince consort_, and the _husband of the queen_.
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Have they any sympathies beyond their own race? So some authorities have asserted, and I believe it. They are isolated from us far less than the true insects. They live in our houses, have an interest in knowing us, and seem to observe us. They pay great attention to voices and sounds, and have a marvellous perception of them. If they have not the insect-organs of hearing (which would seem to be the antennæ), it is because they are _all antennæ_. Their excessive vigilance, and the nervous irradiation which makes itself felt everywhere among them, endow them with the keenest receptivity.
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Much has been said about the musical spider of Pellisson. Another and less-known anecdote is not less striking. One of those little victims which are trained into virtuosi before they are ripe of age,--Berthome, illustrious in 1800,--owed his astonishing successes to the savage confinement in which he was forced to work. At eight he astounded and stupefied his hearers by his mastery of the violin. In his perpetual solitude he had a comrade whom no one suspected,--a spider. It was lodged at first in a quiet corner, but it gave itself license to advance from the corner to the music-stand, from the music-stand to the child, even climbing upon the mobile arm which held the bow. There, a palpitating and breathless amateur, it paused and listened. It was an audience in itself. The artist needed nothing more to fill him with inspiration and double his energy.
Unfortunately the child had a stepmother, who, one day, introducing an amateur into the sanctuary, saw the sensible animal at its post. A blow from her slipper annihilated the auditory. The child fell swooning to the ground, was ill for three months, and died,--heartbroken!
Book the Third.
COMMUNITIES OF INSECTS.