OCR Text |
Show TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. O Aa Others That Sbw Tbey Slate laUlllcents. Another curious species Is that of th trap-door spldert, whoa nttt consists con-sists ot tub excavated In th earth to th depth ot six or eight Inches. It U alway lined with silk and It Is closed with an Ingeniously constructed door Ona sort et door close Into the nest Ilk a cork In a bottle! another la a thin aa a piece of paper. In all ease th doer opens outward, and whsn the nest Is placed, as It usually I. ok a sloping bank, It opens upward, so that thsre Is no fear of It gaping. Th object of th trapdoor Is to conceal con-ceal th nest, and consequently It Is always made to resemble th geniral surface of th ground. Sometimes, however, an enemy attempts to open th door; and then th Inraats braces It legs agalmt the side of th nest and holds It as fast a posslbls Still other spldera have Inner door besides th ouler, so that If their first detente be carried, they may have another behind be-hind which to retreat Mora curious till Is tbe Ingenuity of tbe branch trap door that Is to say, a door that opena from the main tunnel ot th neat Into a side branch, which th spider knows, of course, but which no stranger could discover, since there Is nothing to distinguish It from any part ot the main neat. So, then, It an enemy en-emy should effect an entrance, the lawful law-ful occupant ot the nest can quietly slip Into the side branch, close to tbe door, and there remain In security while th Intruder wonders what his become of her. If all these wonderful things are done by Instinct, have we any proot whatever of Individual Intelligence In-telligence among spiders? Most at-uredly. at-uredly. If we remember that Intelligence Intelli-gence la proved whenever w observe a manifest application of means appropriate appro-priate to the accomplishment of particular par-ticular ende. It la hardly possible (o deny that there It aome evidence of the Intelligence of spldert Many Inttance hay occurred more or lets like the following; "One of ray frlendt wat accustomed to grant shelter to a number num-ber ot garden spiders under a lsrg Teranda, and to watch, their habits. One day a storm broke out. and the lnd raged so furiously through th garden thst tba spiders suffered dam-Mi dam-Mi from It, although sheltered by we randa. The malnyardt of ont of thete webs, as the ssllors would tali them, were broken, so that the wtb a blown hither and thither, like a lek salt In a storm The spider wade ?.iMh ,nra,. bu' ! o help lf In another way. II let Itself down to the ground by a thread, and trawled to a place where lay some Wintered pieces of a wooden fence, wrown down by the storm It fastened a thread to on of (hi bit of wood, turned balk with It and hung It with a strong thread to the lower part of IU nest, about fire fett from th ground, Th performance wts a wonderful one, for tbe weight of the wood sufficed to keep th nest tolerably firm, while It was yet light enough to yield to tbe wind, and so prevent further Injury, Th piece ot wood was about two and one-half Inches long and as thick at a gooteqolll, On lbs following day a careless servant knocked her head against the wod, and It fell down, Ilut In the course of a few hours the spldsr had found It and brought It btck to It placs When tbe storm hsd ceaaed th spider mended her web, broke th tup-porting tup-porting thread In two, and let th wood fall to th ground "Our Animal Frlendt. |