Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1905-01-12
The Golden Spider.

black markings, is the huge golden
spider sitting In her house woven Of
silken meshes. Her weaving, too.
is narvelously strong, and the six
guy ropes that support her swing
ing habitation are some Eve feet in
length. And what may Mime. Spider
be watching for? Ah, gay green
grassbopper, that. with more athle-
tic action than wisdom, springs right
into the very midst of Nine. Spiders
nest. And she had been on the alert
Cor just such a victim. The web
swings to and fro with such violence
that one would expect II 70 be torn
70 shreds. Bot, no. before The
stupid grasshopper can possibly
kick himself loose, and notwithstand-
ing his struggles have torn large
rent in the web, he ends himself in
cased ih silken shroud, deftly
woven by his enemy, and in this he
swings helplessly. Then Nine.
Spider comes down her zigzag stair
way and sizes up her catch, maybe
gives him little nipping bite and
then leaves him to his fate until such
time as she wishes to serve him up
for the family dinner.
There are many of these great
golden spiders in thickets. All of
them look sleek and well fed. There
is an American spider that haunts
evergreen trees and catches its prey
by means of lasso. The web of
this spider is triangular in form,
consisting of four longitudinal lines
and large number of cross fibres
connecting them. Two corners of
the triangle are attached to twigs,
but the other corner, which termi-
mates in a single thread, is held by
the spider, perching on a neighbor-
ing twig. When a fly strikes the
web the spider loosens his hold, and
the elastic threads instantly entangle
the victim.
If you anchor a pole in body of
water, leaving the pole above the
surface, and put a spider upon it, he
will exhibit marvellous intelligence
by his plans of escape. At first he
will spin a web several inches long
and hang TO one end, while he al
lows the other to float of in the wind.
in the hope that it will strike some
object. Of course this plan proves
a failure. He waits until the wind
shifts perhaps, and then sends
another silken bridge floating off in
another direction. Another failure
is followed by several other similar
attempts until all points of the CON-
pass have been tried. But neither
the resources nor the reasoning
powers OF the spider are exhausted.
He climbs to the top of the pole and
energetically goes to work to con-
struct a silken balloon.
He has no hot air which to initiate
it, but he has the power of making
it buoyant. When he gets his bal
loon finished he does not go of upon
the mere supposition that it will
carry him, as men often do, but no
fastens it to guy rope. He then
gets into his @rial vehicle while IL
is fast and tests it to see whether it's
dimensions are capable of bearing
him away. He sometimes finds that
he has made it too small, in which
case he hauls ID down, takes it all
apart, and re-constructs it on q
larger and better plan. A spider
has been seen to make three differ
emit balloons before he became salts
fed with his experiment. Then he
will get in, snap his guy rope and
sail away to land as gracefully and
as supremely Independent OF his sur
roundings as could be imagined.
The diving bell is considered to.
be q great invention, yet long before
man thought of this contrivance the
water spider had hers, in which she
reared her numerous family. There
are several very remarkable things
about this nest. One of them is the
manner in which it is made.
In that business-like manner
which characterizes all spiders she
boldly plunges into the water and
goes down the stem Of pond weed.
When she has selected a suitable
position for her palace she fixes a
number OF strong lines in different
directions for anchorage. Then in
the midst Of these she constructs a
beautiful web, somewhat in the shape
OF thimble, but not qnite so large.
It is full OF water and therefore not
like diving bell. How is the water
TO be got out and replaced by air 2
The true explanation is wonder
ful.-She carries the whole of the
air required from the surface. Her
body and legs are covered with
-