Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/699

Rh spider contributes its share to the general weal. What would this world come to, if the flies could have their own way in it without let or hindrance? Killing flies is a necessary and righteous thing, and, as it is jointly undertaken by men, women, and spiders, for purposes of common beneficence, each should have an aliquot share of the honor. The spider, as we have seen, is also courageous and soldierly. He is fond of war, and, having taken a position, is very apt to "fight it out on that line," or system of lines, till crowned with victory. But it invests war with no sentiment of "glory," does not dress it up with gilt and feathers, nor use its passions as political stock-in-trade. Sundry misanthropes have claimed for the spider a standard of virtue higher than the human, as witness the following effusion:

This is tolerable poetry, but very poor science. Truth compels us to drag the spider down to the human level—it does kill its own kind. Had it not been for this habit, men would have long ago enslaved the spiders to the silk-business. It is again charged that the spider is a cannibal, and, having killed bis fellow-citizens, proceeds to devour them. But here, again, the spider can claim no originality, and is but an humble imitator of the lords of creation. It has, moreover, been accused of practising murder under very delicate circumstances, when its mind should only be occupied with tender feelings. It is true that love and courtship in the Arachnidian world are apt to be tragical. These creatures are quite too literal in their construction of the phrases, "You will kill me with your coldness," "Love me or I die;" but, in a higher sphere, does not love often become a bloody business of suicide and murder? Yet to the honor of humanity be it said, spiders do one thing which our sort do not: they kill their lovers, and then eat them up on the spot. In many species the male is much smaller than the female, and with these courtship is perilous. The female of the garden-spider is a perfect Amazon, and, when she happens to object to the attentions of her intended spouse, he has to fly for his life; a feat which he generally performs by flinging himself like lightning out