Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1906-01-10
THE GOLDEN SPIDER.
HOW THE GILDED TYRANT GATH
ERs IN THE GRAssHOPPERs.
CUNNING OF THE sPlDER-oNE SPECIES
CATCHES IT'S PREY WITH LAsso
-tNoTHEB MAKES BALLOONS.

"A SI-ueu tyEunt, VILE NeiNely DSHCk
markings, Is the huge golden spider
sitting in her house woven of silken
meshes. Her weaving, too. is marvel
ous.y strong, and the six guy ropes
that support her swinging habtation
some five feet long. And what may
Nine. Spider be watching for? All.
gay green grasshopper. that. with more
athletic action than wisdom, springs
right into the very midst of Nine.
Spiders me-. And she had been Oh
the alert for just such victim. The
web swings to and fro with such VIC
lence that one would expect it to be
torn to shreds. But, no; before the
himself looss- and, Notwithstanding his
struggles have torn large rent i'll the
web he finds himself incased in silk
en- STROUD, deity woven by his enemy.
and In this he swings helplessly. Then
Nine. Spider comes down her zigZag
stairway and sizes up her catch, may
be gives him a little nipping bite AMI
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 Amer
lean spider which haunts evergreen
trees and catches its prey by means of
lasso. The web of this spider is tri-
angular III form, consisting Of four
longitudinal Ines and large number
of cross fibers connecting them. Two
corners of the triangle are attached to
twigs. but the other corner, which
terminates in 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 tic
victim.
If you anchor q pole in body c.
water leaving the pole above the SIR
face. and put a spider upon 1t, he viii
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 allows the othe: to
float off in the wind. In the hope that
1t will strike some object OF course
this plan proves a failure. He waits
until the wind shifts perhaps and tho,
sends another silken bridge floating of
in another direction Another failure
is followed by several other similar at
tempts until all points of the compass
have been tried But neither the re-
sources nor the reasoning powers of the
spider are exhausted. He climbs to
the top Of the pole and theoretically
goes to work to construct a silken bal
loon.
He has no hot air with which to in
fate it, but he has the power of max
ing 1t buoyant When he gets his bal
loon finished he does not go off upon
the mere supposition that it will carry
him, as men often dc, but he fastens
1t to guy rope. He then gets into his
aerial vehicle while it Is fast and tests
1t to see whether its dimensions are
capable of bearing him away. He
sometimes finds that he has made 1t
too small, In which case he hauls It
down, takes it all apart and constructs
It on larger and better plan. A spider
has been seen to make three different
balloons before he became satisfied
with his experiment. Then he will get
in, snap his guy rope and sail away, to
land as gracefully and as supremacy
independent Of his surroundings as
could well be imagined.
The diving bell is considered to be a
great invention, yet long before man
thought of his diving bell the water
spider had hers. In which she reared
her numerous family There are sever
al remarkable things about this nest.
One Of them is the manner in which it
Is made.
In that bvrsinesslike manner which
eharacterizes all spiders she boldly
, plunGes into the water and walks down