VARIETY OF CHARACTER IN INSECTS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR-"]
SIR,—For the chance of your caring to insert in the Spectator my comment on a letter signed "C. J.," in the Spectator of January 19th, I beg to say, as a jealous observer of Nature from my boyhood, that spiders and their marvellous ingenuity attracted my attention in very early days. When a boy I watched the process of the geometric species in forming their webs, and waited till they had constructed them before I ventured to feed their exhausted frames with a fly. It is not in the power of man to do justice to these insects, though we can learn something from their precision. Words are powerless to describe it, and certainly no human power can properly understand it. Kirby and Spence, in their work on Entomology, did a good deal to help one to entertain some faint idea of what is in store for those who try to appreciate insect creation,—to my regret I hear this work is out of print. But referring to "C. J.'s " letter above alluded to, I suggest that the tremor he attributes to his spider, was dne to a very different cause than his august presence. It would be a pleasure to me to go into details—to narrate the particulars of the formation of the web, which is mathematically planned, and every tissue of it proceeds from the " anus" (I presume I may call it) of the spider's body. Therefore any substance (if it be but a midge) lighting on that tissue, by telegraphic communication as it were, affects the person of the spider; though, maybe, inclosed "in his little parlour" far away. It is that which brings him out of his seclusion ! and down he comes, not on his victim (for I doubt whether his eyesight is of much avail), but he can feel, and goes straight to the centre of his web, fixes his eight claws each on the radii of the web, gives each a good honest tug, and the victim responds with a shrug, and straight Mr. Spider waits upon him. This, I believe, is the tremor your friend refers to.—I am, Sir, &c., Holcombe, Bath, January 24th. GEORGE MILLER.
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