p. 698 | WORK OF A SPIDER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 44.

WORK OF A SPIDER.

"On a bright summer afternoon of last season," says a contributor to Nature's Realm, "while lazily resting on the porch in the warm atmosphere, I observed a fly suddenly stop, flutter, and struggle, apparently in mid air. This was soon explained by a little black and brown spider, a shade larger than the fly, darting down from a beam overhead, perpendicularly above the fly. Reaching the latter, he was but a moment in doing whatever he did to secure his prey, and he then ran nimbly up his single cord, which I found, although it was scarcely perceptible, stretched taut from the beam above to a cross rail of fancy work below. The spider ascended about eighteen inches above the fly, and then quickly turned head downward, taking hold of the line with its foreleg, as a child would a jumping rope, and with a swaying motion the then struggling fly began to be swung around something like a button would be in the center of a string held by both hands and rapidly turned by a circular motion. The speed was so rapid that by the time it had reached a circuit of about four inches in diameter the fly could scarcely be discerned. In about a minute its operation ceased and the fly was quiet. Taking the fly from the web line I found under the magnifying glass that every leg was closely tied together in the same manner as farmers formerly tied the feet of calves together when taking them to market in the bottom of the wagons. Taking a needle I tried to release the legs, but the work of the spider was too well done, and the fly soon expired. Did anyone ever witness such a mode of a spider securing its game?"