Because, bumping and bouncing behind its abdomen as it moved, fastened to its body with cables of coarse and discolored silk, the hunting-spider dragged a burden which was its own ferocity many times multiplied.
The hunting-spider crouched over its victim in obscene absorption.
The female spider would carry this burden--cherishing it--until the eggs hatched.
It had been two weeks since the giant hunting-spider had come through a mountain pass into this valley to prey upon the life within it.
There were edible mushrooms nearby, but with the deadly small replicas of the hunting-spider giant roaming everywhere, any movement was as likely to be deadly as standing still to be found and killed.
They knew, of course, that a web-spider will not leave its snare under any normal circumstances.
In the valley, the habitation of a trapdoor spider was marked by grisly trophies--armor emptied of all meat but not yet rotted by the highly specialized bacteria which flourished upon chitin.
As a savage, he knew with strict practicality that it was improbable that there was another baby spider nearby.
Some years ago a paragraph went the rounds of the papers in which it was said that a spider had suspended an unfortunate mouse, raising it up from the ground, and leaving it to perish miserably between heaven and earth.
What object the spidercould have had in this work I am unable to see.
The spider would have to connect the mouse with the point from which it was to be suspended with 150 threads, and if the little quadruped was once swung off his feet, he would be powerless.
The keeper took the post in his hands, and, looking closely, found that a little spider had spun a web from the elephant’s tail to the post, and that this invisible thread had held him stronger than a chain of steel.
The rigging, wet with mist, stretched like immense spider webs from yard to yard, and the jack, left out all night, drooped straight down the mast.
His store is a rusty warehouse, low and musty, piled full of boxes of soap and candles and dried fish, with a little glass cubby in one corner, where a thin clerk sits at a high desk, like a spider in his web.
One would like to know, too, how he treated the red spider on the Le Marque rose.
He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds.
Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps?
He was already well ahead with his fly business; and he had just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of any trouble to me.
The toil of such a spider might last many hours, and be full of such successive measurements, each marked by a spun thread of web.
To illustrate once more in my own way: A spider creeping back and forth across a circle could, if she were geometrically disposed, measure out in temporal succession first this diameter, and then that.
As soon as red-spider appears in a house its appearance is usually known by the reddish tinge on the foliage; syringing should be kept up until the pest is disposed of, keeping the house damp in all except dull weather.
Red-spider is another pest usually found in the grapery, but it thrives only in a dry atmosphere and is easily gotten rid of by syringing.
Frequent syringing with clear water will keep off the red spider that often destroys the foliage, and attention to picking the seed pods will lengthen the season of bloom.
If the plants are intelligently ventilated and given, at all times, as much fresh air as possible, the red spider is less likely to appear.
Dryness of the air, especially from fire heat, is followed by the appearance of the minute red spider on the leaves.
If the red spider or the mealy bug attack them, they may be syringed with tobacco water.
To keep down red spiderand thrips, the foliage should be sprayed with water every bright morning except during the blooming season.
The youngspider has himself well in hand," remarked Abyedok, watching young Petunikoff's every movement and action.
He sat imagining many horrible forms of disaster while watching Petunikoff, who was descending the hill into the wood like a spider going into its web.
So buoyant has it now become that the littlespider is visibly drawn upward, and now clings barely by his tip-toes.
But the spider has hoodwinked even the wise heads in many other ways, and even to-day is an unsolved mystery to many of us.
At that season the spider-egg tufts are turning out their baby spiders by the millions, each a perfect grown spider in miniature, and apparently as skilled at birth in the peculiar arts of its kind as its parents were in their ripe old age.
I have italicized a phrase which is most suggestive, for such is the actual resource of the spider balloonist, a feat which may be witnessed by any one at the expense of a little trouble and patience.
White speaks of the spider "shooting out" the web, and such is the apparent feat, but doubtless the breeze assists in the operation.
Our spider has now reached the asters twenty feet away, and is doubtless busying himself by further securing the anchorage at this terminus.
If we examine closely, we shall doubtless find a lively little spider extricating itself from its unsatisfactory anchorage, and creeping to the nearest available position for a new flight.
Yet among all the distinguished names engraved upon the memorial tablet upon the stone bridge-tower the spider gets no credit.
My six spider legs had gone, and I had a half-dozen little short feet instead; and instead of the sprightly ideas of my baby days, the thought of such a thing as even moving was a bore.
I have just finished the last, and have been out to examine the faded primroses, but only a long-legged green spider rewarded my search.
The spider suddenly ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a tremor originating in the body of the small artisan.
The spider made a convulsive gripe with his limbs and hung dead across the window.
Johnson's polysyllabic references to the industry of the spider, and then bringing tears to their eyes at his picture of the heartlessness of allowing a grey-haired spider to be cast upon the world in its declining years.
In the truest style of Richard Cumberland, he hastened to decry the whole spider family.
The spider then drew dose his silken thread, It was no use to ask the reason why.
The spider drew in its legs as if in mortal fear, and the snakes began to swell out until they were as big round as an egg; at which Mr. Hsue was greatly alarmed, and would have hurried away, when crash!
Years passed away, and one day Mr. Hsue was consulting his archives, when suddenly the spider appeared and ran under the table.
So his son seized the rope and swarmed up, like a spider running up a thread of its web; and in a few moments he was out of sight in the clouds.
By-and-by they saw a hugespider as big as a peck measure, and hurried off to tell their master, who thought it so strange that he gave orders to the servants to feed the insect with cakes.
By this time of the evening, Morgan, curled up on his mother's lap, was usually as sleepy as Spider who lay like a hedgehog on the hearth between them.
He came like a dignified spider toward a fly safely entangled in its web.
He had always been fond of dogs and children, and Gladys, Morgan, and Spider soon became devoted to him.
It seemed to him that they all had the same callous faces as the distant Mr Cookson who had killed his dog; but he knew better than to let Spiderfollow him on these visits.
He ended by pressing Abner to join them, pointing out that Spider would be a useful ally, and Abner, without any hesitation, accepted.
One Sunday morning he had walked down to the Pound House followed by the dog Spider when Mick fell in with him by the way.
They made great plans to go out into the fields with Spider and see the lambs at play; they cried when bedtime came, for very excess of life.
Spider had suddenly become wildly interested in the Irishman's person and was jumping up and smelling at the tails of his coat.
Pour in small spider in which is a little melted butter (hot) and cook over moderate fire.
Older children enjoy a peanut hunt, or a spider party where they follow a twine through a labyrinth of loopings and find a small prize at the end, or a book party, where each guest represents the title of some book.
There is one tiny yellow bush-spider with a killing bite, but the species seem to be rare.
The only fourfooted beast we saw was the small bush-antelope with black robe, of which a specimen was brought home, and the only accident was the stinging of a Kruboy by a spider more spiteful than a scorpion.
At Fernando Po I found another valuable spider which preys upon cockroaches.
But investigation showed that a little grey spider had been up to pranks in the box.
A completed screw-pile lighthouse has the odd appearance of a huge, ugly spider standing knee-deep in the sea.
The spider wasn't particularly interested in earthquakes, but he took the greatest pleasure in the swinging of the boom, and soon began to join in the game himself.
Out in the garden where the western sun flooded the nasturtiums along the garden wall, a large yellow and black-bodied spider made his lair.
The spider retreated to the center of the web and watched the throes of his prey.
In a few moments, when all was over, the spider attacked his prey and began his breakfast.
On our way we pause and stand to see the ground-spider make its trap, bury itself in the sand, and then wait for the falling in of its enemy.
Our friend the spiderhad not long to wait for his breakfast, for presto!
Before he could, with his strong wings and powerful legs, tear the silken gossamer asunder and free himself, like lightning our spider was upon him.
The process of house-building continued uninterruptedly, every movement of the spider producing some result.
By much effort the hopper loosed one leg and was bidding fair to kick the net to shreds when the spider made another sally and, putting a fresh coating of sticky web around him, rolled him over once or twice more and left him.
No experienced football tackle ever downed his opponent with any such skill or celerity as the spider displayed as he rolled over and bundled up into a helpless web-covered roll the foolish and careless hopper.
The spider noticed this and visibly increased his efforts and sped from spoke to spoke, trailing his never ending film of silky web behind him.
Before his meal was well under way, a second hopper flew into the parlor of the spider and, leaving his meal, the agile creature soon had hopper number two securely and safely ensnared.
Illustration: 9160] Other varieties of South American monkeys were more tractable, Mr Graham further explained, and he specially mentioned the little spider monkey and a sapajou as amusing and affectionate.
It is not the ferocity of the she-spider which demands the sexual habit; the female mantis is still more savage, and mantis' method is cavalage.
It is possible, the male spider who survives his amours may live on for several years.
The female spideris nearly always superior to the male in size, industry, activity, and means of defence and attack.
It is his destiny, and he feels it coming, at least the male spider does, and the male mantis allows himself to be gnawed with a perfect stoicism.
