Eye Spy Part 6

Ballooning Spiders

The country boy, or I might say even country baby, who does not know a spider-web when he sees it would be considered a curiosity nowadays.

The morning gossamer spread in the gra.s.s or hung among the weeds and glistening in the dew--who has not seen it, and thought of the agile, long-legged proprietor somewhere lurking near by? And yet for ages, and until a comparatively recent date, this cobweb, either trailing lightly in the breeze or spread in the gra.s.s, was a mystery as to its source, and was believed to consist of dew burned by the sun. But the spider has hoodwinked even the wise heads in many other ways, and even to-day is an unsolved mystery to many of us. Yes, we all know the spider-web and the spider, but have we tried to solve the puzzle which he spreads before us by every path, in our window-blind, our office, our bedroom, or even, it may be, in mid-ocean. Here, for instance, a puzzled nautical friend propounds the question: "How do those tiny spiders get on my yacht when I am twenty miles at sea? They could not have hatched simultaneously all over the ship, and I find them by the dozens all over the sails and rigging, and even on my clothing." I have heard of a little girl who ran in-doors to her mother in great excitement to tell her that it was "snowin' 'pider-webs," a picturesque and true statement as far as it goes, but which tells but half the story, for each of the falling webs held a pretty secret.

What that secret was my yachtsman can readily guess, for the two half-stories taken together complete the tale. Various accounts of these gossamer showers have been handed down in history, and were always a mystery. Even the ancient Pliny records a "rain of wool," a phenomenon which, in a greater or less degree, is to be seen by every walker in the country during the late summer and autumn months--the annual picnic of the "ballooning spiders," whose peculiar aeronautic methods are shown in my ill.u.s.tration.

Gilbert White, in his "History of Selborne," written over a hundred years ago, gives a most graphic account of one of these cobweb showers:

"On September the 21st, 1741," he says, "being then on a visit, and intent on field diversions, I rose before daybreak. When I came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed as it were covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and sc.r.a.pe off the enc.u.mbrances from their faces with their fore feet, so that finding my sport interrupted, I returned home musing on the oddness of the occurrence.... About nine o'clock an appearance very unusual began to demand my attention--a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing without any interruption until the close of day. These webs are not single filmy threads floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes or rags, some near an inch broad and five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity that showed they were considerably heavier than the atmosphere. On every side, as the observer turned his eyes, he might behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned their sides to the sun."

This same shower was witnessed by others, and one observer noted a similar one from the summit of a high mountain, the sky above him to the limit of his vision glistening with the silvery flakes.

White adds, further: "Strange and superst.i.tious as were the notions about gossamers formerly, n.o.body in these days doubts that they are the real production of small spiders, which swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of _shooting out webs from their tails_, so as to render themselves buoyant and lighter than the air."

I have italicized a phrase which is most suggestive, for such is the actual resource of the spider balloonist, a feat which may be witnessed by any one at the expense of a little trouble and patience.

Almost any bright autumn or late summer day is certain to reward our search--indeed a search will hardly be necessary. The entire meadows are often draped in the glistening meshes. They festoon the gra.s.s tips, and wave their silken streamers from every mullein or other tall weed. Our garments are soon faced with a new warp and woof of glistening silk, and an occasional tickling betrays the floating fluffy ma.s.s which has encombed our hands or face. The glistening "rain of wool" of Pliny, or the mimic snow-squall of Gilbert White, I have witnessed many times, only in less degree, over the October rowen-fields. This tickling upon our hands is perhaps not all to be accounted for by the mere contact of the silky web. If we examine closely, we shall doubtless find a lively little spider extricating itself from its unsatisfactory anchorage, and creeping to the nearest available position for a new flight. Even as you are examining the web upon your hand the spry midget has mounted to the top of your finger, and is off on his new silken balloon in a twinkling, sailing upward and out of sight even while his fellow-aeronauts are falling right and left. For this flying-machine, though a toy, as it were, of the wind, is still under control of the wise little sailor at the helm.

Almost any one of these flying tufts intercepted on our finger or upon a small stick will induce its little aeronaut to make a new start, and a careful examination with a pocket magnifier will disclose his secret. No matter how slight the breeze, he seems instantly to head against it, the abdomen is then raised, and in a moment a tiny stream of flossy glistening silk is seen issuing from the spinnerets beneath.

Not the ordinary single web which we all know, but a broad band which represents the many hundreds of strands usually combined in the single thread, but now permitted to issue singly from the spinnerets. White speaks of the spider "shooting out" the web, and such is the apparent feat, but doubtless the breeze a.s.sists in the operation. It is certainly taking good care of this floating banner from the loom of this little spinner upon our finger-tip. Longer and longer it grows. A yard or more of its length is soon swaying about in the breeze. So buoyant has it now become that the little spider is visibly drawn upward, and now clings barely by his tip-toes. In another second he is off on his travels, where few could follow him even if they would. But this we _must_ do if we would see the true "balloon," with its basket and rigging and captain all in perfect sailing trim.

Up to the point of ascension--to utter a Hibernianism--I have often thus followed my balloonist, but at this point I willingly yield the pursuit to a more competent witness, one whose recognized fame as the historian of the whole spider fraternity needs no emphasis from me.

They have kept very few of their secrets from the Rev. Dr. McCook. He has followed them even in their flight, and has brought back all the tricks of their navigation. To have been able to describe as an eye-witness not only the ascension, but the subsequent alert and skilful rigging, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of ship, sailing, reefing, and final anchoring in port of this aeronaut with the silken jib, as Dr. McCook has done, acquiring his facts through a wild pantomime in the meadows, which for a time risked his reputation for sanity, is a triumph of patient investigation which deserves conspicuous acknowledgment.

Here is what the doctor observed while his neighbors, as he ran cross-eyed over the meadow, were bewailing the loss of his reason:

"The spider, as she was raised from the perch, had her head downward.

She immediately and swiftly reverses her position, clambers up her floating threads, at the same time throwing out a few filaments, which are cunningly twisted into a sort of basket into which the feet can rest. Now the upper legs grasp the lower of the ray, and the spinnerets, being released therefrom, are again set to work, and with amazing rapidity spin out a second and similar ray, which floats up behind her. Thus our aeronaut's balloon is complete, and she sits in the middle of it, drifting whither the breeze may carry her. She is not wholly at the mercy of the wind, however, for if she wishes to alight, she can gather the threads into a little white ball under her jaws; as they gradually shorten, the spider, having nothing to buoy her, sinks by her own weight, and the striking upon some elevated object, or falling upon the gra.s.s, makes her feel at home."

Having once alighted, the little pioneer immediately sets up house-keeping for herself, and the locality of its web in a year hence will doubtless be the scene of a similar balloon ascension, multiplied perhaps a thousandfold, from the neighborhood of a tuft of eggs somewhere concealed among the herbage--perhaps a brown, coc.o.o.nlike affair like that of the _Argiope riparia_, hung with its guy threads upon a dried fern.

The ballooning or flying spiders are not confined to any particular species. It seems to be an instinct with them all, but especially with the orb-weavers, or geometrical web-makers, and the wolf spiders; those queer short-legged specimens which dodge about upon the walls and fences, running forward or backward as the whim takes them, or even sideways in a manner at which a crab might turn green with envy.

A shower of cobwebs of unusual extent fell in the vicinity of Brooklyn about ten years ago, having been especially noted by a party of surveyors in Prospect Park, among whom was a noted scientist and naturalist. The ground was covered with the webs, averaging as many as fifteen to the square foot. The shower was later noticed by the same observers upon the summit of the Brooklyn Bridge tower, and doubtless covered several miles in area.

The Lace-wing Fly

Lace indeed! Was ever lace even of fairy queen fashioned so daintily as are the wings of this diaphanous pale green sylph, that flutters in its filmy halo above the gra.s.s tips? Yonder it alights upon the clover. Let us steal closely upon its haunt. Here we find it hid under the upper leaf, its eyes of fiery gold gleaming in the shadow, its slender body now caged within the canopy of its four steep, sloping wings, their gla.s.sy meshes lit with iridescent hues of opal--the lace-wing fly, a delight to the eye, but whose fragile being is guarded from our too rude approach by a challenge to our sense of smell, which plainly warns us, "Touch not, handle not!" Our first capture of the fairy insect is always a memorable feat, with its lingering, odorous reminders, which not even soap and hot water will entirely obliterate from our finger-tips. But why should we have caught her? What an opportunity we threw away in her capture! Why not, rather, have followed the gauzy sprite, and learned something of her ways, something of the mission she is performing as she flits from leaf to leaf? For this is no idle flight of the lace-wing fly as we see her in the summer meadow. Her golden eyes are on a sharp lookout for a certain quest, and we are fortunate if we chance to surprise her softly at the time of her discovery, and with breathless stillness encourage her in the fulfilment of her plans. Everywhere among the gra.s.ses, weeds, and bushes we find the airy tokens of her visits; those delicate, hair-like fringes surrounding culm or twig, or growing like a tiny tuft of some webby mould upon the surface of leaf. But who even guesses the nature of the pretty fringe, or even a.s.sociates with it the pale green golden-eyed fly which we all know so well?

Here beneath our close leaf is an opportunity which we must not permit to pa.s.s. Even as we take another cautious peep we discover that a cobwebby hair has grown from the surface of the leaf, with its tiny k.n.o.b at the summit; and now another is growing beside it, following the pointed rising tip of the insect's slender tail. It has now reached a half-inch in length, when the little k.n.o.b suddenly appears and is firmly glued to the summit of the hair. Another and another are added to the group, until a complete tuft or fringe hangs beneath the leaf. Of course the reader will have now guessed the secret of the episode--that this is a mother lace-wing fly thinking only of her future brood. But what a unique method she employs in egg-laying! What seeming reckless consideration for her offspring! Fancy awakening from one's crib only to find one's self on the top of a telegraph pole, or clinging for dear life at the end of a dangling rope or rod! Yet such is the initial experience of the baby lace-wing flies as they emerge from their filmy, iridescent cradles, whose very first experience in life must needs be a daring feat of acrobatics. But hunger is a mighty incentive to work and daring deeds, and the lace-wing infant is born hungry, grows hungrier with each moment of its subsequent life, and is apparently the more famished in proportion to its gluttony, fully realizing the comment of Josh Billings upon the voracious billy-goat, "All it eats seems tew go tew apetight."

We may be sure that this gauzy mother-fly, with her appetizing reminiscences of her former epicurean days, has placed her progeny in a land of plenty--a land almost literally of "milk and honey." For wherever we find this delicate fringe of pale green eggs we may confidently look also for its counterpart--a swarm of aphides, or plant-lice, somewhere in the neighborhood, occasionally cl.u.s.tering about the very stalks of the eggs, and shedding their copious "honey-dew" for the benefit of the caressing ants, which sip at their upraised, flowing pipes. Ah! if these happy ants only realized the menace of this slender fringe--who knows but that they may?--how quickly they were to be cut down by the destroying teeth!

Here, for instance, a wee babe just out of the egg slides down the stalk, and falls plump among a whole family of the aphides. In a twinkling a young aphis larger than himself is impaled on his sharp teeth and its body sucked dry. But this is merely an appetizer; he has only to extend his jaws on right or left to secure another similar morsel, which is emptied in the same manner, and his first meal would only seem to be limited by the number of victims available, so insatiate is his craving. In a short time he must needs move up farther along the twig, and thus his swath extends, until within an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time the entire swarm of aphides has disappeared, leaving the field occupied alone by the larva, who has perhaps now acquired his full growth by their absorption--a full-fledged "aphis lion," as he is called. He is now about a half-inch in length, a long pointed oval in outline, the sides of its body beset with bristly warts, and its head armed with two long incurved teeth. But these teeth are not like ordinary teeth, constructed for "chewing" or biting, but rather for imbibing, and suggest the two straws in the gla.s.s of the convivialist; being tubular, their open points are imbedded within the juicy body of the aphis, which is soon emptied to the last drop.

The aphides are always with us. Where is the lover of the rose-garden who is not painfully familiar with the pests, their pale green swarms completely encircling the tender shoots, and shedding their sticky, shining "honey-dew" everywhere like a varnish upon the leaves and flowers beneath. Hardly a plant or tree escapes their parasitic attacks in one form or another, where, with their beaks imbedded in the tender bark, they suck the sap, and literally overflow with the bounty which they thus absorb and convert into "honey-dew."

We need not go very far in our country walk to discover our aphides encircling the stems of weed and shrub, and it is well the next time we encounter them to observe them more closely. They would indeed appear at first glance to be having things entirely their own way.

Even here in my city back yard, for instance, upon my growing chrysanthemums, as I sit at the back windows some twenty feet distant, I can distinctly see their brown, disfiguring ma.s.ses completely inclosing the under tips of nearly all the branches.

Again and again have I shaken or brushed them off only to see them increase and multiply; and, on the other hand, on more than one occasion have I seen an entire swarm vanish from a particular twig which I knew was infested only a day or two previous. Why? It was not that the aphides had completed their growth and died or fled. A careful examination among the young leaves or along the stem in their neighborhood showed the author of the havoc, a fat aphis lion, perhaps, in the act of sucking the contents of its last victim, or, perhaps, having completed his growth, contemplating the commencement of his coc.o.o.n in which to abide during the winter.

Almost any swarm of aphides will show us this fat wolf in the fold, and if not this particular one, another--perhaps two others--quite as voracious, one of them the fat larva of the lady-bug, and the other a tapering-looking grub with needle beak and insatiable hunger, the larva of the gold-banded flower-fly.

The Perfumed Beetle

Surprises await us at every turn in wood and field if our senses are sufficiently alert and responsive. I well remember the singular revelation which rewarded my curiosity upon a certain occasion in my boyhood, an incident which now seems trivial enough, but which marked a rare day in my youthful entomological education, and which, as it relates to an insect of exceptional peculiarity, I may here recall.

I was returning homeward after a successful day of hide-and-seek with the caterpillars and b.u.t.terflies and beetles, my well-stored collecting-box being filled with squirming and creeping specimens, and my hat brim adorned with a swarm of Idalias, Archippus, yellow swallow-tails, and other b.u.t.terflies--the b.u.t.terfly-net on this particular occasion being rendered further useless by the occupancy of a big red adder which I wished to preserve "alive and sissin'." I had taken a short cut through the woods, and had paused to rest on a well-known mossy rock. The welcome odors of the woods, the mould, the dank moss, and the spice-bush lingered about me; and I well remember the occasional whiff from the fragrant pyrolas somewhere in my neighborhood, though unseen. It was a very warm day in the middle of July, and even the busiest efforts of millions of cool, fluttering leaves of the shadowed woods had barely tempered the languid breeze, laden as it was with the reminders of the glaring hay-field just outside its borders.

Among all the various odorous waftings that came to me, I caught a whiff which was entirely new, and which in its suggestions seemed strangely out of place here in the woods. What was it like? It certainly reminded me of _something_ with which my nostril was familiar, but which I could not now identify. I only knew that it had no place here in the woods, and even as I sought to take one extra full sniff for further a.n.a.lysis, it was gone. After the lapse of a few moments, however, its faint suggestion returned, and, increasing moment by moment, at length seemed to tincture the air like incense.

It was now so strong as to be pungent, and my wits were keyed to their utmost, until at length a vision of a banana peel seemed to hover against the dried leaves. "Some one has been eating a banana here, and thrown the peel away," thought I. But no, this is hardly the odor of banana, either; it is more like pineapple. Yes, it _is_ pineapple. No, that is not quite it either; it is strawberry. "Nonsense. Strawberry season was pa.s.sed two weeks ago." And while I am debating the matter the spice-bush at my elbow has sent out a pungent challenge which has chased the enchantment all away. The next time it returns in a new guise, and the only suggestion which it brings is a reminder of my mother's red leather travelling-bag. Russia-leather? Yes, that is it--Russia-leather. No. Russia-leather, pineapple, strawberry, and banana peel mixed.

Whatever it was and wherever it came from I now determined to discover. The direction of the breeze was soon ascertained, and I started out to follow up the scent like a hound. I had walked about ten feet, with my nose tingling, when the odor suddenly left me. I paused at a large maple-tree, and awaited the trail. It came. This time it proved to be a hot scent, in truth. I needed only to follow my nose around the trunk of the tree at my elbow to be brought face to face with my game. It was no banana peel, nor pineapple, nor Russia-leather bag, but only a company of beetles sipping in the sun.

A banquet of beetles! There were ten or a dozen of them, congregated about a hole in the maple trunk, all sipping at a furrow in the bark from which sap was oozing. At my approach they started to conceal themselves in the hole, but were most of them captured. They were about an inch in length, and of a purplish-brown color, and glistened like bronze.

I took my prizes home, and determined to announce my great discovery to the world in an early issue of some scientific paper, fully a.s.sured that I had made a "great find." Before accomplishing this purpose, however, I thought I would consult my "oracle," "Harris's Insects Injurious to Vegetation"--a most beautiful and valuable entomological work, by-the-way, which should be in every boy's library. There, on page forty-two, behold my odorous specimen, true to life! And what does Harris say about him? "They are nocturnal insects, and conceal themselves through the day in the crevices and hollows of trees, where they feed upon the sap that flows from the bark. They have the odor of Russia-leather, and give this out so powerfully that their presence can be detected by the scent alone at the distance of two or three yards from the place of their retreat. This strong smell suggested the name Osmoderma, 'scented skin,' given to these beetles by the French naturalists."

"Nocturnal" they may be, but that they are diurnal also I have many times proved. Almost any hot sunny day I am even now sure of my specimen upon a certain oozy cherry trunk near by, the presence even of one beetle being distinctly announced at a distance of ten feet.

There are two common species of these beetles, the present insect being the _Osmoderma scabei_, as given by Harris.

Mushroom Spore-prints

The dusty puff-ball, floating its faint trail of smoke in the breeze from the ragged flue at its dome-shaped roof as from an elfin tepee, or perhaps enveloping our feet in its dense purple cloud as we chance to step upon it in the path, is familiar to every one--always enthusiastically welcomed by the small boy, to whom it is always a challenge for a kick, and a consequent demonstration of smoke worthy of a Fourth-of-July celebration.

A week ago this glistening gray bag, so free with its dust-puff at the slightest touch, was solid in substance and as white as cottage cheese in the fracture.

But in a later stage this clear white fracture would have appeared speckled or peppered with gray spots, and the next day entirely gray and much softened, and, later again, brown and apparently in a state of decay. But this is not _decay_. This moist brown ma.s.s becomes powdery by evaporation, and the puff-ball is now _ripe_, and intent only on posterity.

Each successive squeeze as we hold it between our fingers yields its generous response in a puff of brown smoke, which melts away apparently into air. But the puff-ball does not end in mere smoke.

This vanishing purple cloud is composed of tiny atoms, so extremely minute as to require the aid of a powerful microscope to reveal their shapes. Each one of these atoms, so immaterial and buoyant as to be almost without gravity, floating away upon the slightest breath, or even wafted upward by currents of warm air from the heated earth, has within itself the power of reproducing another clump of puff-b.a.l.l.s if only fortune shall finally lodge it in congenial soil. These spores are thus a.n.a.logous to the seeds of ordinary plants. We have seen the myriadfold dispersion of its potential atoms in the cloud of spore-smoke from the puff-ball, but who ever thinks of a spore-cloud from a mushroom or a toadstool? Yet the same method is followed by all the other fungi, but with less conspicuousness. The puff-ball gives a visible salute, but any one of the common mushrooms or toadstools will afford us a much prettier and more surprising account of itself if we but give it the opportunity. This big yellow toadstool out under the poplar-tree, its golden cap studded with brownish scurfy warts, its under surface beset with closely plaited laminae or gills, who could ever a.s.sociate the cloud of dry smoke with this moist, creamy-white surface? We may sit here all day and watch it closely, but we shall see no sign of anything resembling smoke or dust. But even so, a filmy mist is continually floating away from beneath its golden cap, the eager breeze taking such jealous care of the continual shower that our eyes fail to perceive a hint of it.

Do you doubt it? You need wait but a few moments for a proof of the fact in a pretty experiment, which, when once observed, will certainly be resorted to as a frequent pastime in leisure moments when the toadstool or mushroom is at hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Spore Surface of a Polyporus]

Here is a very ordinary-looking specimen growing beside the stone steps at our back door perhaps. Its top is gray; its gills beneath are fawn-color. We may shake it as rudely as we will, and yet we shall get no response such as the puff-ball will give us. But let us lay it upon a piece of white paper, gills downward, on the mantel, and cover it with a tumbler or finger-bowl, so as to absolutely exclude the least admission of air. At the expiration of five minutes, perhaps, we may detect a filmy, pinkish-yellow tint on the paper, following beneath the upraised border of the cap, like a shadow faintly lined with white. In a quarter of an hour the tinted deposit is perceptible across the room; and in an hour, if we carefully raise the mushroom, the perfect spore-print is revealed in all its beauty--a pink-brown disk with a white centre, which represents the point of contact of the cut stem, and white radiating lines, representing the edges of the thin gills, many of them as fine and delicate as a cobweb.