ample provision for them in his rich and
handsome plantation of mulberry trees; but
that turns out to be just nothing at all. You
may supply them with whole forests, and
they will still ask for more. Twenty paces
off, and further, you can hear a strange
rustling sound, which goes on without the
slightest intermission, like that of brooks
which flow for ever, gradually grinding away
and using up the pebbles of their bed. And
you are not far from the truth; it is a
stream, a torrent, an endless river of living
material which, under the grand mechanism
of an infinity of little instruments, rustles,
resounds, and murmurs, as it passes from
vegetable to insect life, and is gently and
invincibly melted into animality.

To return to the primitive ages: the most
terrible destroyers, the most implacable
rodents, who broke up the lower rottenness
of the grand chaos, who higher up delivered
the tree from the clasp of its parasite, who
finally set to work on the boughs, admitting
light into the livid shades—these were the
benefactors of races to come. Their
uninterrupted labour of indomitable destruction,
brought to reason the vegetable orgie in
which Nature had lost herself. Run wild as
she might, they conquered; they swept open
superb glades and alleys, and the monsters,
exiled from their foul retreats, became more
and more sterile, being delivered up, by this
grand revelation of the forests, to the son of
light—the Bird. Through a profound accord
and a beautiful treaty between him and his
opposite, the son of night, sunshine had
penetrated into the abyss, and his enemies lay
prostrate at his mercy.

The spider, at the same time higher and
lower than the insect, is separated from him
by organisation, but draws near to him in
instincts, wants, and diet. She, strongly
characterised in every respect, is still
excluded from the grand animal classes, and is,
as it were, apart in creation. Amidst the
luxurious vegetation of the tropics, where
game is superabundant, she lives in society.
Spiders are cited who stretch around a tree a
vast net in common, the approaches to which
they guard in perfect concert. Still further:
having often to deal with powerful insects, or
even with small birds, they share the danger
together, and give each other a helping hand.
But this sociable mode of life is quite exceptional,
confined to certain species, and to the
most favoured climates. Everywhere else,
the spider, by the fatality of her life and her
organisation, has the same character as the
hunter and the savage, who, supporting
themselves by uncertain prey, remain envious,
suspicious, exclusive, and solitary. Add to
this, that she is not like an ordinary hunter,
who has nothing beyond his toil, his journeys,
and his personal activity to think of.
Her sportmanship requires considerable outlay
to practise, and demands a constant drain
on her capital. Every day, and every hour,
from her own proper substance she is obliged
to draw the material necessary for the net
which is to provide her with food and renew
her substance. She therefore exhausts herself
in order to feed herself; she reduces
herself in order to fatten herself; she becomes
lean on the uncertain hope of gaining flesh.
Her life is a lottery, depending on the chances
of a thousand unforeseen contingencies.
Such an existence cannot fail to make an
unquiet being with but little sympathy for
its fellow creatures, in whom it sees nothing
but competitors; in short, an animal fatally
egotistical. Were she different, she must
perish of hunger.

The worst is, that the poor thing is
thoroughly and fundamentally ugly. She is
not one of those who, ugly when seen by the
naked eye, become handsome under the
microscope. Any too strong speciality of
trade, as we witness in the case of men,
shrivels up one limb, exaggerates another,
and excludes general harmony. The blacksmith
is often humpbacked; in the same
way, the spider is potbellied. In her, nature
has sacrificed everything to the trade, to the
need, and to the industrial apparatus which
will satisfy the need. She is a work-woman,
a rope-maker, a thread-spinner, and a weaver.
Pay no attention to her person, but to the
produce of her skill. She is not only a
spinster, she is a factory furnished with
spinning-jennies. Concentrated and circular,
with eight feet planted around her body,
eight watchful eyes on her head, she
surprises you by the eccentric prominence of
her enormous belly—an ignoble feature, in
which the careless and superficial observer
would behold nothing but gourmandise.
Alas! it is quite the contrary. Her belly is
her workshop, her warehouse; it is the bunch
of tow which the cord-spinner carries round
his waist to make the yarn he is paying
out. But, as the spider's tow is her own
proper substance, she can only increase its
quantity at her own expense, by practising
the utmost self-denial. You will often see
her, emaciated in other respects, carefully
husbanding her swollen treasury which
contains the indispensable element of her
labours, the hope of her industry, and her
only chance for the future.

At the extremity of her abdomen, four
spinnerets, capable of being pushed out and
drawn in like a telescope, shoot forth, by a
movement of their own, a tiny cloud which
gradually increases. This cloud is composed
of threads of extreme fineness. Each spinneret
secretes a thousand, and the four combined
make with their four thousand threads
the single thread, sufficiently strong, with
which the web will be woven. Note well
that the threads of this intelligent manufacturer
are not all alike, but are of different
quality and strength, according to their
destination. Some are dry, to make the warp;
others are viscous to glue the fabric together.