Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-07-01
ALL KINDS OF SPIDERS
ALSO SOME CORRECT INFORMATION
ABOUT TARANTULAs.
Profound Craft of These Insects-Fe-
male Spider Makes Her Mates
Lot q Hard One.

Harvey Sutherland in Ainslee's Magazine.
There are very many kinds of spiders be-
sides those that annoy the housewife with
their webs stuck up in the corners of the
rooms and in the windows when she has
been too busy with the sewing to look after
the house much; but every kind is an appe-
title on eight legs, and thoroughly convinced
that nobody can be strong and hearty that
lives on vegetables. They all spin more or
less, whence their name, which Is con-
traction of spinder, spinner Also, they
bite, and II you listen to all the fool Stories
that are told, when spider bites you, you
will save time by sending for the lawyer
to make your will and telegraph for the
boys to come home at once If they want to
see you alive. But l will tell you as be-
tween educated people, that know thing
or two and do not get scared over every
little trifie that spiders bite is no worse
than mosquito's-not so bad, in fact. A
big spider can kill a small bird with its
poison, but 1t only makes man s arm
swell up and hurt for day or less. and not
hurt very much at that Bertkau could not
feel the ordinary domestic spider on the
thick skin of his hand. and only between
the fingers could the spider make a pune
ture like that Of dull pin. The worst re-
suit was that it itched a little. Blackwell
had them draw blood, but that was all.
Though one spider bit another so hard that
its liver ran out, it lived for more than a
year afterward. AS for these terrible tar
antulas. either the stories told about VIC
tins having to dance till they fell down
In exhaustion in order to escape death and
madness were tremendous whopperS or
tarantulas don't bite as bad as they used
to. 1t Is true that in those days the
Italian violinists had to work overtime
composing tarantelles to play for the Bit
ten, but still there were sneering Skep-
ha a scheme
to pass the hat for the wife and family of
the suffering man whom malignant spider
had bitten while he was out looking for a
job. Dufour had tarantula that was
quite tame and gentle. She took flies from
his fingers like a dear thing. Almost any
spider can be taught to take food from
forceps and water from camel s-hair
brush. They are great water drinkers,
spiders are. I'll say that for EN-. Like
the little temperance bird we used to read
about. Water. cold water, is all Of their
song Rum and tobacco they turn from
with loathing."
Spinning the Web.
"All spiders spin. but not all Of them spin
snares, those orbed and radiated webs that
we see pictured 50 many times and every
time pictured wrong. But that only goes to
show that the lower animals are not the
only ones that possess instinct. think 1t
will be generally agreed that artists may
be classed among the higher animals. At
any rate, their instinct Is to draw thing,
not as II is but as It appears to q man
that doesn't know very much about any
thing in particular. So he lays off his pic
ture Of a spiders web with pair of divid-
ers. and people marvel at the spiders
mathematical sense, whereas a spider
doesn't bother her head with any such
foolishness. She puts her lines where she
thinks they will do the most good regard
less of their distance apart:
Here Of late though l think have no.
ticed little improvement in artists. They
have begun to notice that the spider al
ways stands head downward In her web, II
it be a perpendicular one, and if it is hori-
zontal hangs back downward. Some of
these fat-web spiders can hardly walk
right side up. But the spider Of art never
has more than six legs, while the real
spider has eight, and the spider Of art Of
ten has three sections Of the body, while
the real spider never has more than two.
The head and chest are in one department,
so to speak. There are their eyes. from
four to eight in number, and disposed in
different patterns according to their po-
litical affiliations; their jaws. which work
sidewise, instead Of up and down; their
poison bag, and a few other arrangements;
and in the abdomen or silk department are
the heart "a banana-shaped affair, the
liver, the slit and tubes that do duty for
lungs, and the spinnerets. These last are
warty-looking affairs that may be spread
apart and brought together exactly like the
thumb and fingers Of the hand. Each wart
Is covered with hundreds Of little hollow
hairs through which Is expressed a gum
my liquid that turns to silk when 1t dries.
Mrs. Spider slaps her spinnerets broad
against the wall and sticks fast q don't
know how many hundreds Of fine fila
ments. Then she pulls away the spinnerets
and shuts them up. and all Of those fine
filamentS melt into one rope In thickness
about $1,000 Of an inch. Insects silk is
simple thread; spiders Is compound.
Il am not going into a complex descrip-
ton Of how the spider lays off her web ex-
cept to say that when 1t extends across any
considerable distance she has stood on her
head as nearly as she could and emitted
thread which the wind blew till it caught
on something Then she took in the slack
and bit it off and threw 1t away After the
line was taut she crept out on it, always
keeping in touch with the home plate, TIL
she got to the further end, which she made
good and secure. Then back to the middle
again, where she dropped on the end of
her line to the ground and made fast there.
After that she worked according to the
way her people have done since the days
when the wood was growing that we now
call coal. If 1t be an orbed snare, then all
the outer croSSbarS are gummed with beads
of tanglefoot for careless flies. There is
comparatively open space around the CEN
ter, so that the scuff1e that always takes
place when there is fresh meat for supper
may not wreck the web too vitality, and
right in the center itself is usually nice
neat little mat for her to sit on, made of
dry unsticky silk and woven like a crazy
quit or one OF these nlt-or-m1SS stained
glass windows Sometimes, instead of
plain radii, she cards her silk into a flock
like ribbon and ZigZags it down one COM
partment of the web.
Different Kinds of Shares.
Some spiders make an all-round snare;
some make a snare like a pie with a piece
cut out, and one kind makes a snare
shaped like the piece of pie that has been
cut out. This last sits there with the slack
of her web drawn up tight between her
feet and waits. A. fool fly bumps into the
line She lets everything go by the run,
and the sticky slack falls over the fly. She
spreads her spinnerets and drops fiat rib
bon of threads over It, The more it kicks
the more it tangles itself. When she can
safely do so, the spider bites her prey till
it gives up Then she sucks the juice out
of 1t and sits chewing on the torn silk till
she gets all the gum off 1t. when she throws
1t away and begins to repair the web.
"Other spiders set their webs fat-wise
over hollows on the ground, a favorite loca-
ton being near path. All the flying and
Thinning things get ont of the Way when a