Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-25

A big yellow and black spider was
rocking himself back and forward furi-
ously in his web as the result of a
picking given him with the end of a
stick
His rage was almost manlike as he
angrily shook himself back and forth,
swaying the entire web to and fro.
white reinforcement, shook the most,
with the motivating energy making the
widest swing If all.
He was just one of the ordinary
spiders, the sort said to be of great
benefit to gardens, owing to their great
capacity for consuming insects, among
which may be many inimical to
flowers.
His web was in a hibiscus bush,
anchored to rIpening seed pod, now
quite brown, almost black. The guy
wire, or whatever it is called, ran al
most to the ground, hitching onto a
branch near the earth.
The web itself was about foot in
diameter 1t was. to our way of think
ing, rather sloppily constructed-for a
spider-with the exception of the curl
Gus white reinforcement. Perhaps this
was not strengthening but a conceal
ing device, since it INSTRUCTED the Mas
Surely the spider is one of the real
master minds, as he cunningly weaves
his web and then sits in it, preying
upon the less masterful insects that
fly, hop and crawl. All that comes his
way is grist. One day it is a grasshop-
per. next fly. then butterfly.
1t makes no difference to the cruel
Master Mind; he eats em all-and
alive, too Perhaps it is unfair to call
him cruel, If cruelty means a purpose
full, conscious mind. Is the tiger cruel
when he leaps upon his prey? We
think not. Only man has the capacity
to be cruel
Yet it is not difficult to credit the
spiders with the intent and purpose
of cruelty as they sit there in their webs
with their little evil eyes glittering and
their hairy legs crooking in the wind
Spiders to most people are simply
nasty brutes the world would be better
Off without. Even the ardent gardener
would forego willingly the actual or
theoretical benefit which they bring to
gardens, or are supposed to bring to
gardens.
The most interesting thing about
them Is the web. Truly that is a mas
terpiece. We recounted in this column
flung his lifeline II feet from a border
to bed.
1t was a fine job. The bracing of
that line at either end was done with
mathematical SureneSS, as certainly as
If 1t had neen calculated for strains and
stresses.
Yet that builder was only bug" in
the common SenSe-a thing if you will
without rhyme or reason, blindly doing
what he did because of forces outside
and beyond him, of which he knew
nothing nor could know anything.
The spider seemed almost an auto
maton, set in motion one knew not
how, keeping on the 60 one cared not
how, but always, whether in this GEN.
fury or thousands of years ago, or TO-
600 years to come, building the same
careful webs because spiders had always
built such webs, and in the same eff
Gent manner.
Such creatures seem to give the lie
to evolution. Webs have always been
the same and always will be the same
No spider builds better web today than
its ancestors did yesterday. The spiders
of the year 10000 AID. will be throwing
out the same patterns, with exactly the
same guides, as the fellows in the gar
den now.
They are standing still!
They know nothing of the alert BUSH
ness mans motto, You can't stand
still: you must either go forward or
backward" Spiders laugh at notices.
X X X X
The ants are the most prominent
garden insects. More evident than the
spiders. on account of their number