Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1857-07-30

THURSDAY, JULY 80, 1857.
ing it successful? How was she able t.
perceive that it was in her power to wind /:
loop of threads around this creatures throat
despite of all his endeavors to- foil her il
this work-a loop of sufficient strength t.
hold him securely, notwithstanding his
struggles and writings, until, by hel
tackle-like power, she could gradually hois
linn up from the floor, thus literally hang.
ing him by the neck till he Was dead =
This was the feat which this adroit lit.
tie heroine actually performed-a feat be-
side which all the fabled exploits Of Her.
|cules, in overpowering lions, serpents, and
dragons, sink into utter insignifcance =
And who can say that, in the planning and
execution of this stupendous achievement,
there was not forethought, reasoning, a
careful weighing of all the difficulties and
dangers and a clear perception, in the maiaeo
of this little creature, that she possessed the
ability to accomplish what she undertook
in short, an exercise of faculties of much
higher order than the mere instinct which
is commonly supposed to guide and govern
these lower animals in their movements
By what artifce the spider was able, in
the first of its attack, to accomplish what ii
did, we can only conjecture, as its work was
not discovered until the most difficult and
daring part of it's feat had been performed.
When first seen, it had placed loop around
the neck of the serpent, from the top Of
which a single thread was carried upward,
and attached to the under side of the shelf,
whereby the head of the serpent was drawn
up about two inches from the floor. The
snake was moving around and around inces-
sanity, in circle as large as it's tether would
allow, wholly unable to get its head down to
the floor, or to withdraw it from the moose
while the heroic little spider, exulting no
doubt in the success of its exploit which
was now sure beyond peradventure-was
ever and anon passing down to the loop and
up to the shelf, adding thereby an addition
al strand to the thread, each of which strands,
being tightly drawn, elevated the head of
the snake gradually moreand more.
But the most curious and skillful part of
it performance is yet to be told. When it
was in the act Of running down the thread
Fte;the loop, the reader will perceive it was
spesslb1e1for the snake, by turning his head
vertically upward, to snap and seize the spi-
der in his mouth. This had no doubt been
repeatedly attempted in the earlier part of
the conflict; but, instead of catching the
spider, his snakeship thereby had only caught
himself in an additional trap. The spider,
probably by watching each opportunity when
the mouth of the snake had thus been turn
ed toward her, adroitly, with her hind legs,
as when throwing thread around fly, had
thrown one thread after another over the
mouth of the snake, so that he was now per-
fectly muzzled, by a series of threads placed
over it vertically; and these were held from
being pushed asunder by another series of
threads placed horizontally, as my inform
ant states he particularly observed. No
muzzle of wire or wicker work for the mouth
of an animal could be woven with more ar
tistic regularity and perfection; and the
snake, occasionally making desperate at
tempt to open his mouth, would merely put
these threads upon stretch.
The snake continued his gyrations, his
gait becoming more slow, however, from
weakness or fatigue; and the spider cont
nued to move down and up on the cord, gra-
dually shortening it, until, at last, when
drawn upward so far that only two or three
inches of the end of his tail touched the floor,
the snake expired-about six days after he
was first discovered.
A more heroic feat than that which this
little spider performed is probably nowhere
upon record-a snake foot in length hung
by common house-spider! Truly, the
race is not to the swift, nor is the battle to
the strong! And this phenomenon may
serve to indicate to us that the intelligence
with which the Creator has endowed the
humblest, feeblest of his creatures, is ample
for enabling them to triumph in any emer-
gency in which he places them, if they but
exercise the faculties he has given them. -
It is only the slothful, cowardly, timorous,
that fail; and they fail not so much before
ness. .-
Seeing upon his wife's shoulder large
shawl pin, Mr.. D. said:
''In the military, eh? Got to be cap
tain."
She instantly remarked, pointing to a
third baby in her lap
"No, recruiting sergeant in the third in
fantry."
A militia officer in Texas boasts, through
the papers, that his men wouldrally at the
tapping of drum" Perhaps they would
rally still more promptly at the tapping of
keg.
''Well George" asked friend of young
lawyer, chow do you like your profession?"
s'Alas, sir, my profession is much better
than nv nractica -