The Atlantic Monthly | Page 8

boxes were opened:
then, of course, they tried to escape. Half a dozen of the larger ones
were placed on the window-seats and in corners of the room, where
they speedily constructed webs. By preference these were stretched
across the windows, illustrating one of the three principal instincts of
this spider, which are, first, to seek the light; second, to ascend; and
third, to take a position with the head downward.
It was now a question how they were to be fed; not so much while there,
where flies were abundant, but after their arrival at the North. So,
remembering that the young ones had seemed to relish blood, I took the
tender liver of a chicken, cut it into little pieces, and dipped them in
water, not, I am sorry to say, with any view to supply them with that
fluid for the want of which they afterward perished, but in order that
the bits of liver should be more easily pulled from the pins by the
spiders. To my delight they greedily accepted the new food, and now I
felt assured of keeping them during the winter.

Deferring, however, a more particular account of what was observed at
Mt. Pleasant, until their habits and mode of life are taken up in order, it
should be understood that, during our short stay, my attention was
chiefly directed to getting from the spiders as much silk as possible; for
it was evident that practical men would not credit the usefulness of
spiders' silk until an appreciable quantity could be shown to them. The
first trial of the machine with a live spider proved it an utter failure; for
though quite ingenious and complicated, it had been devised with
reference only to dead spiders. In regard to the arrangement (wherein
lay its chief, if not sole, peculiarity) by which a thin slip of brass was
sprung against a rubber band by the latter's elasticity, with a view to
secure the spider's legs between them, it was found that, as the spider
was alive, and, literally, kicking, and two of its legs were smaller than
the rest, these were at once extricated, and the others soon followed;
while, if the spring was made forcible enough to hold the smaller legs,
the larger were in danger of being crushed, and the spider, fearing this,
often disjointed them, according to the convenient, though loose habit
of most Arachnida, crabs, and other articulates. It was also proposed to
secure several spiders in the above manner upon the periphery of a
wheel, the revolution of which would give a twist to their conjoined
threads, carried through a common eyelet upon the spindle; but this can
be accomplished without the inconvenience of whirling the spiders out
of sight, by modifications of the apparatus which has always been used
for twisting ordinary silk. It will probably be inferred from the above,
that, in securing the spider, two points are to be considered; first, to
prevent its escape, and second, so to confine the legs that it cannot
reach with their tips either the silk or the spinners. Now the machine
accomplished this by putting all the legs together in a vice, as it were,
entailing upon the captive much discomfort and perhaps the loss of
some of its legs, which, though eight in number, are each appropriated
to a special use by their possessor.
So, abandoning the machine, I fell back upon a simple reel, and a
modification of my little contrivance of the previous year; which was,
to grasp the spider by all the legs, holding them behind her back, and to
let her body down into a deep notch or slot cut in a thin card, the edges
of which reached the constriction between the two regions of the body,

the cephalothorax and abdomen; so that, when a second piece of card
was let down upon it, the cephalothorax, with the legs of the spider,
was upon one side of a partition, while on the other was the abdomen,
bearing upon its posterior extremity the spinning organs. The head and
horns of a cow to be milked are secured in a similar manner. By placing
in a row, or one behind another, several spiders thus secured, a
compound thread was simultaneously obtained from them, and wound
upon a spindle of hard rubber.
By this means were produced several very handsome bands of bright
yellow silk; but the time was so short, and the means of constructing
and improving my apparatus so deficient, that I could procure no more
than these few specimens, which were very beautiful, and shone in the
sun like polished and almost translucent gold; but which, being wound
upon a cylinder only an inch in diameter, and from several spiders at
different times, could not