Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1901-09-09
A SPIDERS GENIUS.
Feat in Engineering that Suggests
True Intellect.

Feat in Engineering that Suggests
True Intellect.
I have considerable respect for the
female spider, notwithstanding the fact
that she does not treat the male very
considerably. I had an opportunity
last summer to watch large one that
had web in the top of decaying
peach tree with so few leaves that it
was IN plain view. / caught sight of
her first when watching some birds
with my glass. She seemed to be
climbing from the top of the tree on
nothing to a telephone wire some fif-
teen feet away and somewhat higher
than her web. When she reached the
wire she went around it and then back.
In studying the situation I found that
the web was so located that it required
a cable to hold it up, and the spider
had in some way got one over the wire
so far away. This cable was, of course.
a slender sliken thread which evident
ly she had thrown out, and on account
OF its lightness it had f1oated to it's
right place and became attached there
remarkable that it should haveadhered
to the wire firmly enough to allow SO
large an insect to climb over it, which
she did every day as long as I watched
her, evidently to mend or strengthen it.
The spider must have brains in which
the ability to construct it's web and
adapt it to conditions is highly devel-
oped. In an article in Chambers Jour-
nal the following account Of how the
spider forms it's silken threadsi is given:
"Onc of the most interesting features
in the economy of spiders is their
power of emitting slender threads Of a
| silk-1ike substance called gossamer,
with which most of them construct
mesh-like nets, and few long, dang
| ling cables, by which they are buoyed
through the air with nearly as much
facility as though they had been
! furnished with wings. The apparatus
provided by nature for celebrating
and emitting this gossamer is a beauti-
full piece of mechanism
Within the animal there are several
little bags OF yesicles of a gummy mat
ter; and these yesicles are connected
with a circular orifice situated at the
abdomen. Within this orifice are five
little teats, or spinnerets, through
which the gossamer is drawn. It must
not be concluded, however, that there
is only one film Of gossamer produced
by each spinneret; the fact is these
teats are studded with thousands of
minute tubes too small for the naked
eye to perceive, and each of these
em1ts thread Of inconceivable fine
ness
These minute tubes are known as
| spinnerules and the films which proceed
from them unite like so many strands
OF rope to form the threads of a COS
samer which a spider suspends it.
self. The finest thread which human
mechanism can produce is like aship's
cable compared with the delicate films
which flow from the spinnerules of the
largest spider. The films are all dis
t1nctly separate on coming from the
splnneret, but unite, not by any twist
ing process, but merely by their own
glutinous or gummy nature. Thus the
spinning apparatus of the disdained
spider, when viewed by the eye of
science, becomes one of the most won
derful pieces of animated mechanism
known to man. The animal has
great command over this apparatus,
and can apply it at will as long as the
|receptacles within are replenished
with the gumIny fluid, but as soon as
this gum is exhausted all it's efforts to
spin are fruitless, and it must wait till
nature, by her inscrutable chemistry,
has secreted it from the food which is
| devoured.