El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-01-17
By F. st. Mars.


supper time every night. and
- standing on the white cloth just
in front of me, waved her front pair
I Of legs in the air. 1t was an upcanny
! proceeding and suggestive OF some
/ strange secret understanding between
1 us-between her, the spider and me
/ the man.
Then she would start off suddenly
I on a sort of track record business,
tearing round the table at amazing
[ speed, in and out among the crockery
( under the glare OF lamps, terrifying
/ the flies out of their wits. At intervals
( on her rounds she would stop, with the
I odd abruptness which characterized all
her habits in front of me 10 wave
I her legs, always directly IN my dlrec-
I ton. And that she knew me seemed
I evident for no one else was favored
with these signals, though why and
! for what reason this strange cann1oal
/ crea ture should act thus was a fact
/ cannot explain. Nor can I tell you how
she knew supper from any other time,
, but she did.
one night she came to the table
strangely altered 1t was as II In
twenty-fOur hours her body had in
creased in bulk threefold. Only her
legs were the came-lOng and Wavy-
I should have thought her different
spider had she not stopped TO make
secret passes in the air at me as
usual Then the truth was revealed
The fatuess was not her at all, but
EOultLllLlZ she GA4AAE4 DE4AEaA4A --HAn
and close inspection showed q sort OF
cocoon little yellOWish-white sack
of silk attached TO her spinnerettes
Beautifully woven IL was, too, as fine
as the finest silk fabric, and as COM
pact She had become a mother, and
inside the cocoon were her eggs
IN spite of this weight however.
she ran her nightly race against time
round the lamp and stayed late to
drink. One hour she was drinking
altogether in two shifts, one Of 30 and
one Of 20 minutes Then she started
for home
That was a weird home-going. First
from the table she moved up the wall.
then raced along the frieZe, under the
ceiling, down to the kitchen door,
through 1t, round under the kitchen
ceiling, down through the door into
the scullery. Up till then her pace had
been fairly good. considering the
burden, but, once in the scullery, she
became a changed creature.
No cat could have moved with half
such caution. Every step was stealthy,
every nook and Granny cautiously
avoided, or circled with head facing
the Granny 1t was not till dis
covered with a powerful light that
many Of these holes had furious eyed. /
crouching spiders. that understood
the need for all this
Once just by the bend of a water
pipe. and without the slightest warn
ing. something rushed out at her IT
was another spfder and speed of that
at her II went but swift as il was
her swiftness fairly took ones breath
away. In a flash she had leapt aside
by two inches, had turned with
streaking. sidelong rush suggestive Of
a crab, had darted in again. and bit
ten the foe on the back of the neck
Three times she did this, and at the
third bite the enemy curled up and
was still. Those terrible curved jaws
with their poison-duct had done their
work. TheNattacking spider was dead
picked,it up, though it was much big
ger than herself and walked off with
it coolly to her own den in hole left
by a nail just between a beam ana
bulge Of the kitchen chimney on the /
other side.
Now, spiders hibernate during winter. (
as bears do md it is necessary, in I
order to hibernate. to get fat first
This spider was engaged in getting I
fat just as, ] suppose, all other spid- 4
ers in the scullery were. But the pro- 1
cess was amazing.
She had outside her denim which /
by the way, she deposited her cocoon /
when at hOme-a web. It did not look /
much OF a web, just a limp, loose /
triangular affair, quite small and very /
dirty, but there were the carcasses Of 4
p flies on the copper beneath 1t, all ]
the same I used to wonder how she ]
did it, with that poor web.
Next morning, by a stroke Of good 1
luck, she captured a bluebOttle, one Of I
the last Of the season, I think, and was I
just engaged in winding the buzzing 4
thing up in the web when the servant I
came and swept the whole thing away. /
But the next morning she had con-
structed another web. and within an !
hour had caught another bluebOttle. !
The buzzlng, however. again attracted
the servants attention, and again for 1
the second time the web was swept 4
down. I saw the spider come out and l
peer at the site Of the vanished web, /
and saw her start running about /
round and round in an odd, stricken
kind Of way.
Next morning there was no web up
there OUTSIDE her den. though she was
there. Calmly had indeed descended
upon her. she had no web left in her
to spin. Spiders. it seems. can only
produce web at certain rate, and
wait some time for more to collect
within them. But our spider could /
not wait It was, as explained. inn
perative for her TO get fat quick IL she 4
would live through the uvfnfer and J