Wings & Stings

Chapter IX: The Spiders' Garden Party

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          The morning was misty with the purple haze of autumn. Through it the sunlight filtered, dappling with gold the stubbly wheatfield, the lovely meadow, and the cool, shadowy green of Ferny Bank.
          The wild clematis, that through August had wrapped the gray lichen-covered fence in a lacy veil of starry blossoms, was now clouded with the silver-gray of its plumed seeds. The meadow, that such a short time ago had been tapestried with daisies and buttercups, was now decked with a thousand tints of gold and purple, orange and pink, scarlet and russet-green. Asters--violet, purple, and white--stood side by side with the rusty yellow of the Beggar Ticks. The iron-weed flaunted its magenta bloom close to the yellow feather of the proud goldenrod.
          Butterflies with wonderful wings of buff and black, great tawny fellows and tiny ones all azure and shimmering white, swayed and drifted among burly beetles, blundering bumblebees, and giddy, gauzy-winged flies that visited each wayside inn. Innocent honey-tipplers were they all. But down among the ferns--there is where my story begins.
          Now Ferny Bank was the most fashionable resort for spiders in that part of the world, and there they lived, some in beautiful air castles, some in turrets with gloomy crypts beneath, some in swinging domes, others in flowers, and yet others, strange, lurking creatures that had no homes at all. All these went to make up the spider society of Ferny Bank--a very select and interesting company.
          Madam Shamrock was very busy that lovely morning weaving a new web, a bird having flown through her snare the day before, leaving it a total wreck, past all repairing.
          She turned her spinnerets toward a tall ragweed, and the filmy thread which she sent flying, floated, caught and fastened itself. Then climbing to the very tiptop of a blackberry bush she drew her line taut and fastened it securely; then down she climbed and started across Wild Rose Road, trailing her silken cable after her.
          “Good-morning,” she said to Mrs. Thaddeus, who lived near by on Wild Rose Road. “Wasn’t it provoking that that bird could find no place to fly but through my web? Still, I really did need a new one, so it isn’t quite so bad.”
          Mrs. Thaddeus looked very pretty that morning, sitting in the door of her thimble-shaped home. So purely white was the satin luster of the silken cottage that it looked like a pearl tucked among the foliage of the web, jeweled now with dewdrops. Mrs. Thaddeus wore a gown of pale green, trimmed with dark bands, and she had eight long legs, as every spider should have, and there wasn’t a better weaver in Ferny Bank.
          “Good-morning,” she replied pleasantly to Madam's greeting. “That tall boneset will give you a good point to fasten to. I see you are just at the scaffolding. I always enjoy putting in the spokes, and good strong cables I make for them.”
          “Now I like best putting in the lace wheel,” said Madam. “I touch each spoke with my spinnerets, leaving a gossamer thread behind, and each thread I string with tiny beads. Alack and alas for the silly fly or grasshopper who sets foot on my stairway! Every bead holds him fast. I sometimes use one hundred and forty thousand beads to a single web, so you may know how sticky it is. When the web is quite finished, I spin a telegraph line from the center; then all I have to do is to sit in my cool fern nest, with my sensitive foot on the line; and let anything fly into my snare, out I rush to capture it in a trice.”
          “Where does Madam Shamrock live?” asked Mrs. Bank Argiope, after Madam Shamrock had set off to the boneset (Mrs. Argiope lived in the sumach, next door to Mrs. Thaddeus). “I notice none of the Shamrocks live in their webs as we Argiopes do.”
          “I should hope not,” replied Mrs. Thaddeus, a bit contemptuously. “Few really well-born spiders do, you know. Madam Shamrock is very aristocratic. She has a beautiful little home in the very tip of three fern leaves. She sewed them skillfully together and lined them with the finest silk. Nothing could be prettier than that delicate green outside contrasting with the dainty white lining, unless it is my own artistic nest. As for living in one’s snare, oh, that’s not to be thought of for a moment.”
          “I don’t care what you think,” replied Mrs. Argiope, angrily. “I am one of the largest orb-weavers in the United States, for all there are so many of us. I heard a wise man say so who was passing this way the other day. And just look at my web. See this shield of white silk in the center and these beautiful zigzag lines that lead to the edge.”
          “Well, what is the use of all that?” inquired Mrs. Thaddeus, languidly. “It’s only a reckless waste of good silk.”
          “That’s all you know about it,” retorted Mrs. Argiope, shaking her web angrily. “Don’t I always hang head downward on my shield to rest, or hide behind it when danger comes? Isn’t my zigzag a winding stair, and the greatest help when I am in a hurry? Besides, I am the handsomest of all the spiders.”
          “You handsome?” and Mrs. Thaddeus laughed so hard she almost fell from her door. “Do you really think you are beautiful?”
          “How dare you laugh at me?” cried Mrs. Argiope, with all her six eyes glaring with anger. “Isn’t my gown of yellow beautifully marked with black? Isn’t my head-dress silver-gray? Just see my eight pretty stockings of orange, ringed with brown and black! It isn’t polite of you to speak to me so.”
          “There, there,” said Mrs. Thaddeus, more kindly. “So it wasn’t, and of course you can’t help being so large and fleshy, and really when one looks closely your web is very beautiful. Please forgive me.”
          “Gladly!” exclaimed Mrs. Argiope, who had a very sweet nature; “and to prove it, I will show you my pretty cocoon.”
          “Oh, do!” and Mrs. Thaddeus went scurrying over to Mrs. Argiope’s web. “I do so love cradles.”
          There, beside the web, Mrs. Argiope had bound together the feathery heads of seeding grasses, and under this pretty awning she had swung by silken guy-ropes her pear-shaped nest.
          “It is lovely,” said Mrs. Thaddeus, warmly. “How did you upholster it?”
          “Oh, first I wrapped my two hundred eggs in a white silk sheet--you can’t imagine how pretty the tiny yellow eggs looked in its soft folds--then, when I had folded them up snugly, I wove a fluffy blanket of purple silk floss. Next I covered them with a counterpane of yellow plush, and then put on the waterproof cover of glaze. Oh, they will swing in their dainty baskets as safe and snug as can be until next spring.”
          “It is beautiful. You Argiopes do make exquisite nests,” replied Mrs. Thaddeus, “but I have heard you are not very kind to your husbands.”
          “No,” sighed Mrs. Argiope. “I always am rather ashamed of it; but they are such tiny, insignificant creatures, and so afraid of us, that it makes us contemptuous. We do treat them shamefully, I know. Yet we generally furnish a web for them to live in. That is my husband’s apartment,” and Mrs. Argiope pointed to a shabby, irregular rag of a web at the edge of her own beautiful, big snare. “I ate my first husband,” she went on. “You know spiders usually dance before their sweethearts at the wooing, but our Argiope mates are such stupid things they can’t dance, but just climb about on our web without rhyme or reason. Well, he looked perfectly ridiculous sliding about in that silly way, and when I got to thinking how beautifully Miss Zebra Spider's lover danced, I grew angry, and just turned my spinnerets upon him and wrapped him in a sheet of silk before he could say ‘boo.’ Then--I was very hungry -- I ate him at once; but I must say he was rather tough and had a poor flavor.”
          “How dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Thaddeus, throwing up her front claws. “But then it isn’t any wonder; male spiders are always such tiny, good-for-nothing creatures, I don’t know if we could be blamed if we ate them all up. by the way,” she went on, “I hear that your sister, Mrs. Banded Argiope, has built a cottage on Purple Aster Place. The view from there is so beautiful I quite hesitated between it and Wild Rose Road; but I decided on the Road because it was a better hunting ground. Ferny Bank is getting to be very fashionable. I do hope I shall meet your sister.”
          “Excuse me a moment,” cried Mrs. Argiope. “A grasshopper just jumped into my snare, and I must attend to him.” Away she ran down her zigzag stair to where the great hopper was desperately kicking his heels. Mrs. Argiope turned her spinnerets upon him in a twinkling, and sent out such a sheet of fluffy white silk that his kicking only made matters worse. Then she seized him between her two front legs and trundled him over and over, at the same time holding firmly to the web with her second and third pair, and spreading the silk she was reeling off with her fourth pair--useful legs, those eight!--until there he hung, trussed in a silken hammock, unable to move.
          “Heigh-o!” said Mrs. Argiope to Mrs. Thaddeus, after she had breathlessly climbed her stair again and settled herself head down ward in her silken sitting room. “It is such a trouble, this keeping of game. My breakfast of bluebottle fly was so delicious that I would rather have something lighter for lunch, and keep this big juicy fellow for dinner. Besides, eating so many tidbits of flies through the morning takes away one’s appetite at noon. You were saying you wanted to meet my sister. She will be at the Turret’s garden party this afternoon. You are going, of course?”
          “I suppose so,” replied Mrs. Thaddeus, indifferently. “But really, it is going to be such a crush; everybody is invited, even the Running and Jumping Spiders. Just fancy!”
          “Oh, I think it will be great fun,” laughed fat, good-natured Mrs. Argiope. “All the little spiderlings of Ferny Bank are going, and they are getting new frocks. Yesterday I could see their baby clothes hanging on the web lines everywhere. They will eat them tomorrow. Certainly we spiders are thrifty, considering that we eat not only our bits of ragged web, but our old clothes, too.”
          “Yes, indeed,” assented Mrs. Thaddeus. “I hear that Mrs. Furrow’s little lame spiderling, who lost two legs in a fight with an ant, found two fresh ones in his brand new suit. That’s one good thing about being a spider--you can always grow new legs, if you lose any, till you get your last new clothes; after that there’s no hope. Well, goodbye until this afternoon. I shall see you at the party.”
          The Turret Spiders lived on Mossy Knoll, one of the prettiest places in Ferny Bank. Maiden-hair ferns, delicate and feathery, made cool green shadows on the moss; everlasting grew tall and straight, each white blossom breathing a nutty fragrance like some queer incense; among the moss nestled the pretty partridge vine; and there amid all this loveliness stood the castle of the Turret spider. It was built of grass stems and weed stalks, the little sticks neatly crossed at the corners, and chinked in with moss and pellets of earth. This was the watch-tower upon which Madam Turret sat to guard her home, and woe to the foolish grasshopper or giddy bee who came too near. But the watch-tower was only the capping of the Turret home, and underneath was a deep, dark tunnel in the ground. Part of this tunnel, and all of the watch-tower, was lined delicately with white silk, for Madam was a wonderful housekeeper.
          This garden party was the first she had given at Ferny Bank, and she was very anxious it should go off well.
          “Oh, spiderlings!” she cried over and over. “You do worry me so. How can I get the house in order and the refreshments ready if you are so naughty?”
          For you see poor Madam Turret had a hundred children just the same age, and the naughty things made her carry them all at once. Madam always wore a gown of velvety brown fur, trimmed with gray, and some of them clung to this., while others attached themselves by wee silk threads spun from their tiny spinnerets. There they hung, crowding and jostling, each trying to get the best place.
          “Mother, mother,” cried a spiderling. “Brother is spoiling my new jacket.” “Oh, Mamma Spider, sister is hurting my sixth leg,” wailed another, “and now she has put her foot in my third eye.” So they fussed and fidgeted, pushing clear over their mother’s head, until she suddenly reached up her long forelegs and scraped off a load of little wigglers. Holding them out in front of her, she looked at them gravely.
          “My dears,” she said, gently setting them all down on the edge of the turret, “I cannot have such behavior. Now be quiet until our guests arrive.”
          The little Turrets, who really wanted to be good, settled quietly down to talk things over, while they watched to see who would be the first to come to the party.
          “It won’t be very long until we can each build a little turret of our own,” said one.
          "When we are four weeks old mother will let us go," said a bright little thing. "First, we will make a wee, tiny turret. As we grow larger we shall get new clothes until we are as big as mother, and then we shall always wear a fur dress like hers, and build a house just like this lovely castle."
          "I've heard mother say," eagerly cried one bit of a spiderling, "that our Aunt Turret who lives at the seaside uses little white pebbles as a foundation for her watch-tower; that must be lovely. Oh, look, look, there comes Miss Caudata in her balloon."
          Sure enough there came Miss Caudata with long banners of white silk floss floating before and behind. When she saw Turret Castle she gradually drew in her silken banners, gathering them into a little ball above her mandibles, and sank as lightly as a thistledown.
          "How-de-do! how-de-do!" she cried merrily, as Madam Turret and all the spiderlings came to greet her.
          "Oh, what a pretty house this is!" she exclaimed, clapping her front claws. She was a gay young thing and looked very charming in a tailor-made gown of gray and white. "You should see what a lovely new web my sister has. She cut out a section at the top, and has six of the most beautiful cocoons. They are straw color, no larger than a pea, and she has decorated them with the gauzy wings of flies and the bright heads and bodies of all the pretty beetles she has caught. The cocoons are fastened to a white silk ribbon so that she can sit at the hub of her wheel and guard them. I shall have one just like it by and by, but I'm not old enough to settle down yet," she rattled on. "Oh, there comes Mrs. Thaddeus and Madam Shamrock. How well their balloons fly together. Now you just see, Madam Turret, is Madam Shamrock hasn't that same yellow gown with the little clover leaf embroidered on the back. I am so tired of it. They say her own sister wears one of purplish-brown trimmed with yellow; strange they should dress differently, isn't it! Oh, how-de-do, how-de-do!" she cried, as the balloon sank down.
          "We passed Mrs. Labyrinth and Mrs. Bank Argiope, Mrs. Triangle, Mrs. Banded Argiope, and ever so many others coming," said Mrs. Thaddeus, as she greeted her hostess. "Mrs. Banded Argiope's web is beautiful; all zigzags of ribbon and cords of white silk, ever so much handsomer and not near so common as Mrs. Bank Argiope's."
          Mrs. Banded Argiope at this moment stepped lightly from her balloon in a wonderful gown of silver-white fur banded with yellow and black. Bowing graciously to all, she led the way with Madam Turret to the garden, out among the ferns and the partridge-berry vines.
          I wish I could tell you of all who were there, but Madam Turret has mislaid her list, and I can only guess at some of them.
          The Orb weavers were all there, I am sure of that, and most of the jumping. These had short, stout legs and short, stout bodies, and very bright eyes, and quick, queer little jumping movements, for they could spring now backward, now sideways, with apparently no effort at all. Their family name was Attus, and they wove no snare, but sprang at their game as a cat does, and therefore the Orb-weavers all looked down on them. But Madam Turret was gracious and kind to all, and talked a long time to little Mrs. Attus, who, in a neat gray gown, was there with all her little ones. They wore pale green frocks, and they looked very bright and cunning, for each had a whole circle of little black eyes. Some of the running spiders were there, and one of them brought her cocoon full of eggs to the garden party, which Mrs. Thaddeus thought in very bad taste. But as she carried it about with her all the time, fastened to her spinnerets, why blame her--it was either that or stay at home.
          All the little Crab spiders were invited, even if they do always stalk for their prey and never weave webs (for that matter neither does Madam Turret). You see, they live in flowers and wear pretty, gay gowns, pink, or green, or yellow, or white with crimson markings. Everyone admired them.
          Little Miss Celer was delightful. "Oh," she laughed to Mrs. Bank Argiope, "I could not weave a web like yours to save myself; but I live in the very heart of a big pink rose, and am so happy. I nestle among the stamens. See, my gown is pale yellow, so I just match them, and I hold up my legs in their yellow stockings, and no one would know me from a part of the flower. If a bee or a wasp comes near I cuddle down and hardly breathe until it is gone; but if it is a butterfly or moth-click! that pretty thing will never go winging over the garden again. It does seem cruel, but I must have my dinner."
          Mrs. Marmorata, who weaves a most wonderful dome-shaped web, like a lace parasol without a handle, was there with her husband. For, strange to relate, these two spiders live together in perfect harmony, capturing insects and dining together as one might expect well-bred spiders to do. When she wants to put her eggs in their cradle she slips away alone, leaving her husband to keep house. But after a time she comes back to him looking very thin and worn with her family cares. It was delightful to see them at the garden party together, so happy and contented with each other, when all the other ladies had come alone.
          One of the Trapdoor spiders from the south was visiting in Ferny Band, and so had come to the garden party.
          "I dig a tunnel much like yours," she told Madam Turret. "But instead of a watch-tower I make a little trapdoor with beveled edges and a hinge of silk, covered on the outside with earth and leaves; and so perfectly does it fit that no one can tell it from the ground."
          "How pleasant this has all been!" remarked Mrs. Thaddeus, coming up with Madam Shamrock. "We had such a delightful time."
          "Going so soon?" asked Madam Turret, graciously.
          "We are so sorry, but we have an engagement to go over young Miss Cross Spider's suspension bridge before dark," explained Madam Shamrock. "It is just finished, and is a very fine one of the best silk cables; it runs from Sumach Ridge to Ironweed Hollow. She turned her spinnerets toward the Hollow and spun, and in five minutes she had a beautiful bridge of silk twenty feet long, fastened and finished. She is very clever. I suppose, Madam Turret, we shall meet you at Mrs. Furrow Spider's ball to-night?"
          "Not to-night," replied Madam Turret, gently. "I never leave my spiderlings."
          "It has been the most delightful affair of the season." "Oh, Madam Turret, the flies were delicious." "The dewdrops in the goldenrod cups were so pretty." "How delightfully the cricket orchestra played, and your spiderlings are perfectly charming." This and much more the spiders said as they bade their hostess adieu. Then each orb-weaver mounted a fern leaf and cast out two silken banners, and floated away one after another, leaving the Jumping, the Running, and the pretty little Crab spiders to get home as best they could.
          Madam Turret sat with her spiderlings about her upon her watch-tower when Mossy Knoll had settled down to the rest and quiet of twilight. Out among the ferns the fireflies were swinging their golden lanterns, and the breeze brought the silver tinkling of the wee violins of the little tree crickets who were playing for the spiders' ball.

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Plants

Clematis
Aster          Beggar's Tick          Iron-weed
Goldenrod          Ragweed          Wild Rose
Boneset          Sumach          Grass
Maiden hair fern          Everlasting          Partridge Vine

A Spider's Family

Spider Eggs
The Spider's Cocoon
Spiderlings

Spider Anatomy

Spider Faces and Feet - Up Close!
Worksheet for Identifying Spider Anatomy
Spider Silk
See a Spider's Silk Spigots under a Microscope
Spinnerets
See a Black Widow's Eyes Warning! This is rather gruesome
Another Up-Close of Spider Eyes

The Spiders

Bank Argiope (Argiope aurantia) & Close-up pic.
Zebra Spider (Salticus scenicus)
Banded Argiope (Argiope trifasciata)
Turret Spider
Triangular Spider
Labyrinth (Metepeira labyrinthea)
Orb Weavers (Araneidae)
Jumping Spiders (Salticidae)
Wolf Spider, a Running Spider
Wolf Spider with Egg sac
Crab Spiders (Thomisidae)
Crab Spider preying on a Bumblebee
Trapdoor
Cross Spider

The Spider Web

How Spiders Build their Webs
Spider Web Construction
Make Your Own Spider Web
How Long do Spider Webs Last?

How do Spiders Fly?

The Spider's New Suit or How he grew Two new Legs

Why do Spiders eat their Mates?

What do Spiders like to Eat? or What Refreshments did Madam Turret set out?

Spider Links

Spider Web Scroll halfway down page.
Extensive List of Links
Spiders
World of Spiders
Spider Glossary

Spider Fun

Spider Songs & Books
Folklore: Why the Spider has Eight Eyes
Life Cycle of a Spider Crossword Puzzle