The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-06-04

projecting webs There they say tc
the insect hordes which are trying to
destroy them: Stay out or will Stay
you. Stay out. God has sent me to
protect the grass and protect the crops
and protect the flowers. Stay out! l
am Gods sentinel and mans guardian.
Stay out! Stay out. Stay out!''
A Net For Insects.
A spiders web is nothing more or
less than a net set to catch the flies
and the locusts and the grasshoppers.
as the fisherman by the use of another
kind of net is able to bring his food
to land. These spiders nests are con-
structed in the air. An insect starts
to fly or jump. The wing or leg OF this
insect touches one of the threads Of
the web, which has an adhesive quail
ity. Immediately that wing or leg by
being jerked or pulled. brings other
threads of the web into touch with
other parts of the body. Similarly
human being sinks deeper and deeper
into the quicksands with every frantic
struggle to escape. The more the in
sect tries to get away the more help
less he becomes. Then the spider,
which has hitherto been concealed.
hurries forth and deftly reaches out
with one of her silken threads. She
winds the insect round and round until
he cannot move IL he would. Then
when the insect is utterly helpless she
gives her victim a fatal poisonous bite
and Stays 1t as quickly as the fang of
a rattiesnake can kill the trembling
rabbit. Thus God places the protect
ing spider web over the crops and the
trees Thus God expects man to place
his protecting webs over the home
and the church and the schoolhouse
and society at large. There are great
multitudes of satanic destroyers ready
to pounce upon them. God says: Man,
you must guard these treasure houses
of virtue and purity and truth. You
must guard them. You must not only
bow the knee and worship me- but you
must also, fight my satanic foes as
well. By the myriads of protecting
spider webs would teach you this les
SON."
But | was very much surprised as |
began to study this subject to learn
that the spider was susceptible to the
influence of love. For years and years
l. had known that the spider was a
cannibal Just the same as the savage
tribes of the African Kongo would go
forth and battle against the neighbor-
ing tribes and then come home with
rejoicing and kill and eat their prison
ers captured in war, so spiders will not
only eat spiders of other families, but
they will also eat their own brothers
and sisters and fathers and mothers.
That Is the reason spider silk cannot
be developed and made marketable
like the threads of the silkworms.
Many years ago the Royal academy
of France tried to develop the spider
silk industry. The silk. thread with
which the spider surrounds her eggs
Is of beautiful color. almost as strong
as that made by the silkworm. NJ.
Bon of Languedoc manufactured arti-
cles of wearing apparel out of the
spiders web. But the industry had to
be abandoned because the spiders
would destroy one another until every
one of them except the biggest and
the strongest Of them had been slain in
their cells. Thus the spider used to be
to me the symbol of ingratitude, feroc-
ity and hate. He was the symbol of
all that was cruel and loathsOme and
repulsive. l thought God gave to the
spider his hideous physiognomy, his
rows of cleaning eyes, his bloated
body trunks adhering together by
small connection, as We're the two
bodies Of the Siamese twins; his many
jointed, disproportionate legs, which
make it possible for him to travel in
any direction he would without turn
ing around; his poisops which are Sc
creted at the mandible tips and his
eannibalistic tendencies which compel
him to live hermit life, because God
wanted every one to turn from the
spider In complete disgust. But after
| went on. In my investigations found
that even this low, vile, repulsive form
VI AIAC oo Aouuu tHc SDIuct Is SuS-
ceptible to the influence of love.
An Ancient Tradition.
An ancient tradition states that when
st. Felix of Nolan was being pursued
by the pagans who wished to put him
to death he fed into a cave, and the
spiders took pity ON him and covered
the entrance of the cave with per
feet web. There he lived for six long
months, safely protected from his
would be destroyers. That is mere
legend. But history is full of Incl
dents where men have made pets out
of spiders. When Poisson was con-
fined for many months in the Bastille,
the famous French prison, his only
companion was spider which he do
mesticated. When Poisson played on
musical instrument the spider would
come regularly to eat flies out of his
hand. 1t was written by Staveley that
certain Frenchman tanned over 300
different spiders, which would come to
him to be fed as lot of chickens will
run to the call of the farmers wife