The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-08
SPIDERS OF THE FIELDS.
LENGTH OF LIMB AND GREAT AGIL-
ITY OF THE ADEY-LONG-LEGs.
Waiting far Unmatched Prey - In
Quest of WRter-HOw Very Young
Spiders Lfve-Immature Web-Spin-
ners-Parting With IA Limb.

Spiders Live-Immature Web-Sptn-
ners-Pnrting With IA Limb.
From the New York Post.
Every one who has wandered through
the fields towards the END of summer will
have noticed the long-legged brown-coat-
ed spider (best known by the name daddy
long-legs), which had his home III the
pasture or in the stubble. taking UP his
abode at the foot of a thistle, mullen
plant, or a cluster of yarrow-sometimes
in a patch of moss or beneath a stone
or at the bottom of a rottng stump-but
in whatever situation always active and
alert, with a disproportionate length of
limb and emallness of the body, and a
dizziness of movement that augurs much
for his predatory powers. The creature
is one of the phalangides known popular
ly as a harvestman, and while moi a true
spider is perhaps the most alertly enter
prising of the members of his order
Lacking the power to spin, as well as
the trap-laying faculty of some of his
relatives, the harvestman gets his living
by the aid of his long legs-those astound-
ingly prolonged processes which lift him,
as it We're, upon a eonning-tower from
which to look out for his prey. Watch
him as he scurries along the closely crop
ped surface of the pasture or over a
spreading burdock, or across the prickly
stubble, and you wonder how he manages
to control his stills with such deXterity.
There is no hesitation in his movements,
however rough his roadway; and the in
sect that escapes him must have q wary
eye and the power of swift retreat 1t is
matter of simple speed in most cases,
the harvestman running down his prey,
as the greyhound runs down the hare;
but sometimes there are periods of patient
strategy in which the spider Is waiting
for the lowering insect to venture within
his leap, and sometimes there is suspic-
ion to be out-wearied or a counter caution
to be outwltted, and not nfrequently the
prospective quarry is a member of his
own clan.
Only the other day I came upon several
of these fellows in a novel situation, they
having attached themselves to the es-
tablishment of a huge web-spnner-for
what purpose I did not at first surmise.
The proprietresss OF the web was an inn
mense black, glossy creature, with a
spread of limb that might have almost
stretched across a tumbler-and beneath
the abdomen she was Colored red--a pc
cularity which Is indicative of the pos
session of unusually poisonous fangs. Hav-
ing found an unoccupied cellarway, the
spider had taken possession of II and
spread her web in such a way as wellnigh
TO cover its entire area; and about half
way down, between the threshold and
the lowest step, she, had suspended the
beautiful pear-shaped receptacle. in which
she had placed her eggs. AS no male spid-
er was to be seen,vf concluded that, after
the manner of her kind, the female had
devoured him when his existence was no
longer advantageous to her; and hence
aN..l,ra
young alone. What surprised me was that
three or four harvestmen appeared to
have established themselves as part of her
retinue and stepped nimbly about among
the strands of the web apparently as
much at home there as upon the stubble
or the autumn grass Il was not until
remembered their. fondness for young
spiders as an article of diet that / under
stood the drama, and, why the mother lin
gered so persistenuy In the neighborhood
of her cocoon. Having some curiosity to
see with how lavish a hand nature had
provided for the perpetuity of the species,
I dissected the peaT-shaped bag and count
ed between eighty and hundred eggs-a
sufficient indication of her carefulness of
the type, as well as of the feast the har-
Vestmen, but for my intervention might
ultimately have secured.
The life of the young spider has as yet
been too little observed to permit of a con-
elusive answer TO the question how 1t
ives; but it seems to be fairly we'll estab-
lished that for Some time after 1t leaves
the egg, no solid food is taken the little
creature subs isting in a condition of per-
feet health and increasing steadily In bulk
upon the moisture of the atmosphere, and
only finding more substantial nourishment
when he has grown strong enough 10 cap
ture II for himself. Hence the perslstency
with which the cocoon is met with in sit
uations where the air IS damp. 1t is the
inability of the adult spiders to live with
ont moisture which accounts for their
abunda nee during very dry weather III the
neishborhood Of. streams, and causes the
abandonment Of SITUATIONS in which, at
other times they delight Throughout the
summer l have been in the habit of occa-
sionasly watching the behavior Of sturdy
fellow that comes down every afternoon
for a drink at the Kitchen sink, its tactics
in climbing up the sheet of zinc below the
faucets being feat of engineering and
lesson in the SPIDERS method Of overcom-
ing difficulties. The fact that the creature
always drops at a tangent from the point
where he loses hold, and never perpendicu-
larry, throws light upon his mode of climb
Ing, since IL seems 70 be the front feet that
first lose their grip and the mind ones by
which the fall is arrested; and as one of
the latter appears always 10 make its hold
secure longer than the other, the fall pulls
sidewise, and the spider draws up head
downwards, an inch or more out of the line
from the point from which he dropped.
l have known the little climber to spend
a quarter of an hour without rising more
than half an inch, his falls carrying him
over a foot or more of lateral surface. yet
apparently without he least discourage
ment or dampening of his ardor When at
last he succeeds in leaving the zinc behind
the rest of his task IS easy, the rougher
surface of the wall above affording him
secure and easy footing.
Almost exactly at the time when the
harvestman is most in evidence, the feds
and bushes and the fences along the road
side yield proof of the activity of myrieds
OF young spiders IN those leagues of
streaming silky, fiocculi that stretch from
one prominence to another or float loose
upon The autumn air. 1t IS the embodiment
of the first efforts of the splnners, and the
very paFpable imperfections in the strands
are due to the youngsters lack of familiar
ity with the working Of his equipment The
silk is uneven In its TEXTURE and the
strands are loosely twisted, and one comes
upon yards of rough and fattened threads
which look as II the playing out of the