ONE day, as I was walking in the fields and looking about for something to divert my mind, I saw a large spider hanging by her tiny thread from one of the branches of a small tree.
Well, Mrs. Spider, thought I, you are beginning to weave a web I suspect. I think you are a very curious worker, but I wonder how you contrive to fasten your house on the boughs of two trees.
I know you cannot fly, and I should riot think you could jump so far, and so accurately as to just hit the branch. It is true, if you fall, your thread might catch you; still, you might get hurt.
I think it must be equally difficult for you to take your thread in your mouth or in your hand, and run down one tree and up another. So long a thread would be apt to become entangled.
The spider, I believe. heeded me not, for she went on with her work at a very rapid rate. She first ran down some distance on her slender cord; then up again, apparently doubling it, and leaving it to float in the air.
When she reached the top, and turned about, I thought she was preparing to descend again; but just then I perceived that the gentle breeze had wafted her light thread to the high post of a neighboring fence, where its fibers at length caught on a projecting part, and remained firmly fastened.
As soon as the spider noticed this, she tightened the cord, attached it firmly to the tree, and then ran on the line to the fence, spinning as she went. When she reached the fence she spent a few seconds fastening firmly the foundations of the house she had begun to build.
Soon she returned to the tree, then back again to the fence two or three times, each time stopping a moment to fix securely the end of her cord. When it became a six fold or an eightfold thread, she stopped about the middle of it, and remained there for a moment.
Presently she ran to the fence again; then, instead of stopping as before to fasten her work, she went on one side, and attached a thread at a little distance from the former place. I now perceived she had bound her bundle of cords together in the middle, and that this last thread diverged from this point.
When she had made the second thread two or three folds, she diverged still more with another, and so she continued till each end of, her work resembled an open fan. She then began to fill up her work with cross threads, as you have often seen in spider’s webs.
I cannot tell how fast the time passed while I was watching her but I should think in half an hour she had woven quite a web.
I suppose you have often seen a spider’s web. How slender the silken threads are! We are told a wonderful thing about them. When the common garden spider begins her web, she weaves together more than six hundred separate strands to make one slender thread which she stretches from her body.
What wonderful instinct God has given these insects. Had we the time and opportunity to study their lives and habits, we would, doubtless, discover that God, as a good and wise Creator, has given to each the proper instinct suited to its nature. And thus they are well able to provide food and shelter for themselves and their young.
If you will read the 104th Psalm, you will see how the Psalmist is so impressed with God’s wonderful creation and His care for His creatures, that he exclaims,
“O Lord how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches.” (Verse 24.)
ML 02/24/1924