Spittle

“ Now you settlements have drawn near to hearken. Where you have gathered in the foam you are moving about as one. You Blue Cat and the others, I have come to offer you freely the white food. Let the paths from every direction recognize each other. Our spittle shall be in agreement. Let them (your and my spittle) be together as we go about. They (the fish) have become a prey and there shall be no loneliness. Your spittle has become agreeable. I am called Swimmer. Yû!
Explanation.
This formula, from A‘yûninĭ ́s’ book, is for the purpose of catching large fish. ”

“ The spittle in which they are sheltered may be seen in great abundance during the summer on the stems of our alders and willows. In the perfect state they are not thus protected, but are found on the plants in the latter part of summer fully grown, and preparing to lay their eggs. ”

“ In eastern Massachusetts and in central New York I find the notion that warts may be removed by rubbing them with spittle. A working-woman from Boston tells me that if one rubs a corn with spit upon retiring, four nights in succession, the center will come out of the painful callosity.
We have all seen how involuntarily people moisten a slight burn with saliva. ”

“ If the Spider was here, I could tell him of some relatives that I met,—rough, hairy spiders, with fierce looks; soft, plump things that melt away almost at the touch; and others of gorgeous hues, that double themselves into cunning shapes to resemble flowers and buds. At last I came upon an army of Saüba ants, each one carrying a bit of green leaf daintily as a parasol. ”

“ On every sunny morning monster spiders ran out from the holes and angles of the weir-frame, and spun webs across and across the straddling iron legs below the footbridge, right down to the lowered surface of the water, which had so sunk that each spider had at least four feet more of web than he could have reckoned upon before and waxed fat on the produce of the added superficies of enmeshed and immolated flies. ”

“ Choosing a warm, sunny morning in the early part of the autumn, all the little spiders climb the nearest bush, and each one makes its way to the very tip of a leaf. Then, clinging firmly to its hold, it begins to pour out a very slender thread of silk from one of its spinnerets. You know that on warm, sunny days the air near the ground soon becomes heated and rises, as hot air always does ”

“ MRS. GRABEM AND FUZ-BUZ.
MRS. GRABEM was a hairy spider who knit cobwebs and caught flies and brought up a small household of nine young spiders.
When I first knew this happy family, and learned all the wonderful things they heard and did, their home was as pretty a place as a spider need want. Their web was spun to and fro across the crotch of an old apple tree, and when they looked down they could see the green grass, and when they looked up they could see the great jolly red apples which must have looked to those young spiders just as the stars look to our own young folks. ”

“ Senhores, that was the Spider's nest—a lair made from the growing bushes and vines so cunningly twisted and woven among themselves that a man could stand within ten feet of it and never suspect that it was a shelter and hiding-place. ”

“ As I stood for a moment doubting whether I should proceed, and a good deal puzzled about the whole affair, I caught sight of a large spider crouched up in a corner with his stomach on the ground and his knees above his head, as some spiders do sit, and looking at me, as I fancied, through a pair of spectacles. ”

“ Most daring of all, perhaps, are the aerial journeys undertaken by many small spiders. On a breezy morning, especially in the autumn, they mount on gate-posts and palings and herbage, and, standing with their head to the wind, pay out three or four long threads of silk. ”

“ When inclined to make these aërial excursions, the spider ascends some slight eminence, as the top of a wall, or the branch of a tree; and turning itself with its head towards the wind, protrudes several threads, and, rising from its station, commits itself to the gale, and is thus carried far beyond the height of the loftiest towers, and enjoys the pleasure of a clearer atmosphere. ”

“ Attracted, as I was, by all that concerns spiders, I could not remain indifferent to a fact so important and interesting as the periodical apparition of those threads which in spring and autumn we see flying about in long white skeins, clinging to trees, to hedges, and to the vestments of the passers-by, carpeting the country in a few hours with more silk, and finer and whiter, than could be spun in a year by all the reels in the world. ”

“ When once a spider has built its burrow it dwells in it [104] for a long time. These burrows are built in such a manner that when it rains the water can not get in.
Have you ever thought, when looking at the web of a spider, what an admirable piece of work it is, and how this thread is manufactured? No lace is more beautifully worked. The thread is formed by a semi-liquid secretion, which comes out, at the will of the spider, through minute apertures, and which hardens into a thread by contact with the atmosphere. ”

“ The spider, in like manner, whose web is in danger, runs a line, from the part exposed to the severest strain or pressure, to the nearest point of support, in such a manner as to secure the slender fabric. A bird has been known, in like manner, to support a bough, which proved too frail to sustain the weight of the nest, and of her young, by connecting it, with a thread, to a stronger branch above. ”

“ The spider has completed her beautiful work. Now she has taken her post in the middle of her web, her eight feet are placed upon its threads, and she watches for the slightest motion which is made by any insect that touches her web.—Now, my girl, can we suppose that God who made this insect, and gave her this surprising skill, will forget her, and leave her so that all her labour and pains will be useless! ”

“ The spider lies in wait even for the young of the lizard, and after enveloping the head of the animal, bites its lips; a sight by no means unworthy of the amphitheatre itself, when it is one’s good fortune to witness it. ”

“ Here is one family of spiderlings upon the grape-vine spray, for instance. They are hanging several yards above the water, and with an ocean, as it were, between them and the distant country upon which their hearts are set. But there is no hesitation or misgiving. Let us closely observe this eager youngster far out upon the point of the leaf. The breeze is blowing across the brook. In an instant, upon reaching the edge of the leaf, the spiderling has thrown up the tip of its body, and a tiny, glistening stream is seen to pour out from its group of spinnerets. ”

“ But although unmistakably a spider as soon as it leaves the egg, the animal is, at first, in many respects incomplete, and it is only after a series of moults, usually about nine in number, that it attains its full perfection of form. ”

“ Spider’s voice I heard
Crying in an angry tone:
“Better let my lunch alone!
Even Spiders’ rights must be respected.
“One would think, for all you care,
Spiders could subsist on air.
Listen to this tale and see
If you don’t agree with me!”
* * *
I sat down without a word,
Following is the tale I heard:
74
THE TALE.
The Spider spinneth a yarn to instruct the Poet and divert him that he may forget about the Fly.
A Prince who sought
His lost Bride, caught
In the toils of a witch,—woe betide her!—
When riding one night
Through a forest, caught sight
Of a Spi in the web of a Flyder. ”

“ She wondered if they had any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful difficulty in their family intercourse,—a fat and floury spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a little at a cousin’s table where the fly was au naturel, and the lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each other’s appearance. ”

“ Empty powder-boxes and rouge-pots littered the dressing-table, and various other aids to nature evidenced her predecessor's frailty. From a coign in its fastness a black spider eyed her malignantly, and as long as the light lasted she watched it. ”

“ The nest in the chink between the door and the wall contained a batch of the spider‘s eggs.
door, or, like our little resident of the honey-suckle, between two leaves which the web strands have drawn partly together. Get a straw and poke it into one end of the web, Out pops the small proprietor from a slit in the other end, and, always turning face toward the enemy, prepares to beat a further retreat or stand and fight.
Samuel Francis Aaron. Jumping-spiders attract our attention by their short stout legs, bright colors, big eyes. ”

“ When one has a Garden Spider in a bottle, it may be observed to practise a curious and very effective method of disabling its prey. If a bluebottle or any other large fly be dropped and entangled among the threads, the spider will envelop it in a sheet of web. ”

“ W'en dey duh talk dis word so, Spider come, he meet dem duh talk. He say, he go put de Bundo. He go to de town, he tell de chief he wan' to put all fowl Bundo. Now de chief say: 'All ret.'
"Spider tell de chief fo' sen' plenty man fo' buil' one big, big ho'se. Well, w'en dey done buil' dis ho'se heah, Spider say to de fowl:
"'To-morrow so, now make yo' se'f ready, oonah (you) all.'
"Now he go sharp he knef, Wahtah, wootah! wahtah, wootah! De fowl dey too plenty; dey get one town fo' demse'f, soso fowl (only fowls) . ”

“ The writer has seen one of these spiders spin so many webs across the stems of water plants in a limited space that not only the small water-shrimps and larvae, but even a young fish were entangled. The other and more artistic means of gathering air employed by the spider is to catch a bubble on the surface and swim down below with it. The bubble is then let go into a bell woven under some plant, into which many other bubbles have been drawn. In this diving-bell the eggs are laid and the young hatched, under the constant watch of the old spider. ”

“ I have succeeded with Bees and Wasps, but the murder has been committed at night and has taught me nothing. I would find both insects, next morning, reduced to a jelly under the Spider's mandibles. A weak prey is a mouthful which the Spider reserves for the calm of the night. ”

“ So you see, senhores, it was as I told you at the beginning—this man lived like a spider and he died like one. If you know spiders, you know that the female is larger and stronger than the male, and that often she turns on him and destroys him. ”

“ This fact tends to explain the power possessed by the spider of producing threads having different degrees of tenuity. By applying more or less of these papillæ against the place whence it begins its web, the spider joins into one thread the almost imperceptible individual filaments which it draws from its body; the size of this thread being dependent on the number of nipples employed, and regulated by that instinct which teaches the creature to make choice of the degree of exility most appropriate to the work wherein it is about to engage. ”

“ But while she was eating she chanced to look down at her feet, and there was a great black spider coming straight towards her. The girl had never seen such an enormous and hideous-looking spider before, and she was so frightened that she gave a scream and tipped backward off the tuffet, spilling the curds and whey all over her dress as she did so. ”

“ Spider’s indignation made her look quite fierce.
“They do not,” was the decided answer. 37“All spiders are spinners, but not all are web makers.”
Ruth looked puzzled.
“You see,” explained Mrs. Spider, “it all depends upon the way they catch their prey. Spider habits are as different as their looks. Some like the sun, others prefer the shade. Some live in the forest, and others with the house people. Many make their home in the bark of trees, and under stones.”
“I’ve seen that kind,” interrupted Ruth, eagerly, “and when you lift up the stone they run awfully fast. ”

“ That that big spider never wants plenty of flies, and that she repairs her web, after it has been broken by a blue-bottle fly, overnight, and has it nice and new and fresh next morning fit for another day’s sport. ”

“ This spider, when it lets itself drop--for it has the same protective habit as the other--falls not so rapidly as a green freshly broken off leaf or as the green spider would fall, but with a slower motion, precisely like a leaf withered up till it has become almost light as a feather. ”

“ Hence, from each spinner proceeds a compound thread; and these four threads, at the distance of about one-tenth of an inch from the apex of the spinner, again unite, and form the thread we are accustomed to see, which the spider uses in forming its web. Thus, a spider’s web, even spun by the smallest species, and when so fine that it is almost imperceptible to our senses, is not, as we suppose, a straight line, but a rope, composed of at least 400 yarns. ”

“ And the spider, when it lays its eggs, broods over them, and in three days the eggs or grubs take definite shape.
All spiders lay their eggs in a web; hut some spiders lay in a small and fine web, and others in a thick one; and some, as a rule, lay in a round-shaped case or capsule, and some are only partially enveloped in the web. The young grubs are not all developed at one and the same time into young spiders; but the moment the development takes place, the young spider makes a leap and begins to spin his web. ”