Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1895-09-12
THE CITIZEN.
Spider flaming.

Although entomologists have often rais-
ed spiders for purposes of scientific obser-
vation and investigation, spider raising
as a money making industry is something
rather novel. One has only to go four
miles from Philsdelphis, on the old Lam
caster pike, says rhils. paper, and ask
for the farm of Pierre Grsnt.ire to see
what can be found nowhere else in this
coantry, and abroad only in little French
village III the DepArtm ut OF tie Loire.
Pierre Grantaire furnishes spiders at so
much per hundred for distribution in TIE
wine vaults of the merchants and the
nouveaux riches. His trade is chiefly
with the whole sale merchant. Who is able
to stock cellar with new. shining, fresh
ly labeled bottles, ard in three months
see them veiled with filmy cobwebs, so
that the effect OF 20 years OF storage
is sec ured at a small cost. The effect
upon a customer can be imagined, and is
hardly to be measured IN dollsrs and
cents. 1t is trifing matter to cover
the bins with dust, hut to cover them
with cobwebs spun from cork to cork, ana
| that drape the ne ok like delicate lace
the seal ofyears of slow mellowing, tha'
is different matter. The walls oil Mr.
GrAntaire's spider house are covered Win
wire squares from six inches to ioo'
across, and behind these screens tue walls
are covered with rough planking. Ihere
| are cracks between the boards apparently
left with design, and their weatherbeaten
surfaces are dotted with knot holes and
| splintered cIevices. Long tables running
| the length of the room are covered Will
small wire frames. wooden boxes snH
glass Jars. All Of these wires in the room
are covered with patterns of lace drapery
in the geometrical outlines fashioned by
the spider artists. The sunlight stream
ing through the door shows the room hung
with cdrtains of elfn-woven lacework.
| 1t is not all kinds of spiders that make
webs suitable for the purpose of the wine
| merct ant, and those selected by Mr
Graintsire are species that weave fine
large ones of lines and circles. They are
the only webs that look artistic in the
wine cellar or on the bottles. The spider
that weave these are principally the Epeirs
vulgaris and Nephils plumipes.
| When Mr.. Grantaire has an order from
a wine merchant, he places the spiders
in small paper boxes, pair in box, and
| ships them in a crate with many holes fol
the impress of air. The price asked, tel
dollars hundred. we'll repays the wint
merchant, who, at the expenditure o
forty OF fifty dollars, may sell his stocl
| for thousand or more dollars above wha
ne could have obtained for it before th'
| spiders dressed his bottles in the robes o
long ago. Mr.. Grantsire has on hand a
a time, 10000 spiders, old and young, CHI
eggs of some of which, the choicest. hi
obtained from France.
When the moth T spider wishes to LAY
her eggs, she makes a small web in
broad crack, then she lays say fifty egg'r
which she covers with soft silk cocoon
In two weeks (or longer in winter) th'
eggs begin to hatch. al operation tha
fakes one or two days. The eggs cracI
of IN flakes, aud tho young spiders hrv'
a struggle to emerge Then they begiI
% grow, and in a week look like spiders
| thee often moult and ~hed their skin lik,
| snakes. The brood has to he separate
At n tender age. else the members Of ib'
family would de,"sr cach other until 90 ly
one is left