J. H. Fabre, as some few people know, is the author of half a score of wellfilled volumes in which, under the title of Souvenirs Entomologiques, he has set down the results of fifty years of observation, study and experiment on the insects that seem to us the bestknown and the most familiar : different species of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies, beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost nameless little lives which surround us on every side and which we contemplate with eyes that are amused, but already thinking of other things, when we open our window to welcome the first hours of spring, or when we go into the gardens or the fields to bask in the blue summer days. We take up at random one of these bulky volumes and naturally expect to find first of all the very learned and rather dry lists of names, the very fastidious and exceedingly quaint specifications of those huge, dusty graveyards of which all the entomological treatises that we have read so far seem almost
The Life Of The Spicier J'H'Fabre CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library QL 452.F12 1912a Life of the spider / 1924 024 561 106 The tine original of tliis book is in Cornell University Library There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924024561 06 THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER THE LIFE OF THE FLY THE MASON-BEES BRAMBLE-BEES AND OTHERS THE HUNTING WASPS THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER BY J HENRI FABRE TRANSLATED BY Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, F.Z.Si With a Preface by Maurice Maeterlinck NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1915 Copyright, 191 Bt dodd, mead and company CONTENTS PAGE preface: the insect's homer, by maurice maeterlinck translator's note 36 CHAPTER I II III THE BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA 39 78 THE BANDED EPEIRA THE NARBONNE LYCOSA THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: BURROW THE V THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: FAMILY THE IV VI VII 125 153 THE THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: CLIMBING-INSTINCT THE ym THE spider's EXODUS CRAB SPIDER 105 171 , , 87 213 Contents CHAPTER IX FAGS THE GARDEN THE WEB SPIDERS: BUILDING 228 X THE GARDEN SPIDERS MY NEIGHBOUR : XI THE GARDEN SPIDERS THE LIME: SNARE xii 272 the garden spiders the tele: graph-wire xiii xiv 282 the garden spiders: pairing and hunting 296 the garden spiders the ques: tion of property xv the labyrinth spider xvi 248 the clotho spider 317 33o 360 appendix: the geometry of the epeira's web 383 The itself Life of the Spider a virtual diagram of its spiral Acci- however fruitful in surprises we may presume it to be, can never have taught it the higher geometry wherein our own intelligence dent, at once goes astray, without a strict prelimi- nar}' training Are we to recognize a mere effect of organic structure in the Epeira's art? readily think of the legs, which, endowed with a very varying power of extension, might We More or less bent, more or less outstretched, they would mechanically determine the angle whereat the spiral shall intersect the radius the\- would maintain the parallel of the chords in each sector Certain objections arise to affirm that, in serve as compasses ; is not the sole regulator of the work Were the arrangraent of the thread determined by the length of the legs, we should find the spiral volutes separated more widely from one another in proportion to the greater length of implement in the spinstress "We see this in the Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira The first has longer limbs and spaces her cross-threads more liberally than does the second, whose legs are this instance, the tool shorter 394 The Geometry of the Epeira's Web But we must not rely too mudi on this rule, TTie Angular Epeira, the Paletinted Epeira and the Diadem Epeira, or Cross Spider, aU three more or less shortsay others limbed, rival the Banded Epeira in the spacing of their lime-snares The last two even dispose them with greater Intervening distances We recognize in another respect that the organization of the animal does not imply an unmutable type of work Before beginning the stidcy spiral, the Epeirae first spin an auxiliary intended to strengthen the stays This spiral, formed of plain, non-glutinous thread, starts from the centre and winds in rapidly-widening circles to the circumference It is merely a temporary construction, whereof nau^t but the central part survives when Ae Spider has set its limy meshes The second spiral, the essential part of the snare, proceeds, on the contrary, in serried coils from the circumference to the centre and is composed oitirely of viscous cross-threads Here we have, following one upon the other, by a sadden alteration of the machine, two volutes of an entirely different order as regards direction, the number of whorls and 38S The Life of the Spider the angle of intersection Both of them are logarithmic spirals I see no mechanism of the legs, be the} long or short, that can account for this alteration Can it then be a premeditated design on the part of the Epeira ? Can there be calcula- measurement of angles, gauging of the parallel by means of the eye or otherwise? I am inchned to think that there is none of all tion, or at least nothing but an innate prowhose effects the animal is no more able to control than the flower is able to control the arrangement of its verticils The this, pensity, Epeira practises higher geometry without knowing or caring The thing works of itself and takes its impetus from an instinct imposed upon creation from the start The stone thrown by the hand returns to earth describing a certain cur\'e; the dead leaf torn and wafted away by a breath of wind makes its journey from the tree to the ground with a similar cur\-e nor the other is On neither the one side there any action by the mov- ing body to regulate the fall nevertheless, the descent takes place according to a scientific trajector\ the 'parabola,' of which the section ; , of a cone by a plane furnished the prototype 396 : : The Geometry of the to the Epeira's Web A geometer's speculati