By degrees, the emancipated youngsters climb the nearest twigs, clamber
to the top, and spread a few threads. Soon, they gather in a compact,
ball-shaped cluster, the size of a walnut. They remain motionless. With
their heads plunged into the heap and their sterns projecting, they doze
gently, mellowing under the kisses of the sun. Rich in the possession of
a thread in their belly as their sole inheritance, they prepare to
disperse over the wide world.
Let us create a disturbance among the globular group by stirring it with
a straw. All wake up at once. The cluster softly dilates and spreads,
as though set in motion by some centrifugal force; it becomes a
transparent orb wherein thousands and thousands of tiny legs quiver and
shake, while threads are extended along the way to be followed. The
whole work resolves itself into a delicate veil which swallows up the
scattered family. We then see an exquisite nebula against whose
opalescent tapestry the tiny animals gleam like twinkling orange stars.
This straggling state, though it last for hours, is but temporary. If
the air grow cooler, if rain threaten, the spherical group reforms at
once. This is a protective measure. On the morning after a shower, I
find the families on either bamboo in as good condition as on the day
before. The silk veil and the pill formation have sheltered them well
enough from the downpour. Even so do Sheep, when caught in a storm in
the pastures, gather close, huddle together and make a common rampart of
their backs.
The assembly into a ball-shaped mass is also the rule in calm, bright
weather, after the morning's exertions. In the afternoon, the climbers
collect at a higher point, where they weave a wide, conical tent, with
the end of a shoot for its top, and, gathered into a compact group, spend
the night there. Next day, when the heat returns, the ascent is resumed
in long files, following the shrouds which a few pioneers have rigged and
which those who come after elaborate with their own work.
Collected nightly into a globular troop and sheltered under a fresh tent,
for three or four days, each morning, before the sun grows too hot, my
little emigrants thus raise themselves, stage by stage, on both bamboos,
until they reach the sun-unit, at fifteen feet above the ground. The
climb comes to an end for lack of foothold.
Under normal conditions, the ascent would be shorter. The young Spiders
have at their disposal the bushes, the brushwood, providing supports on
every side for the threads wafted hither and thither by the eddying air-
currents. With these rope-bridges flung across space, the dispersal
presents no difficulties. Each emigrant leaves at his own good time and
travels as suits him best.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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