PDF Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management in Japan From Asia To The World Ryo Sakurai All Chapter
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catching something. She climbed up fairly high and then let herself
drop with all her legs stretched out, spinning all the time the thread
by which she was hanging. Then she climbed up it, spinning another
thread, and when she had like this spun some nice strong sticky
threads she waited for the wind to carry them on to some branches
of furze. When these held, Emma ran along them, fastened them
firmly and spun a fresh thread each time till she made a line that was
strong and elastic, and so not likely to break easily. When she was
satisfied it would bear the weight of the web, she spun struts from it
to hold it firm and then began the web itself. She first made a kind of
outline and then spun and worked towards the middle. It was
wonderful to see what a beautiful regular pattern she was spinning,
with nothing but her instinct to guide her.
You know when a house is being built it has tall poles all round it
called scaffolding, which helps the building; well, the first outline of
the web was Emma’s scaffolding, and when it was no longer wanted
she got rid of it by eating it up!
“But how did Emma spin a thread?” I can hear you asking.
It is like this—suppose you had a ball of silk in your pocket and ran
about twisting it round trees to make a big net. This is really what the
spider does, but the silk comes from inside her and will never come
to an end like the ball in your pocket. It issues from what are called
spinnerets. When she lets herself drop, the spinnerets regulate the
thread, but when she is running along spinning she uses two of her
back legs to pay it out, just as you would have to use your hands to
pull the silk out of your pocket. It is a pity spiders usually spin their
webs at night, so that we seldom get a chance of watching them.
I said just now that Emma’s silk never comes to an end, but
sometimes if a very big fly or wasp gets caught in her net she has to
use a great deal of her silk, which she winds round and round the fly,
binding him hand and foot, and then her stock of thread which is
carried inside her may run low; but it soon comes again, especially if
she gets a good meal and a nice long rest.
A fly struggling in her web.
When Emma had finished she was pleased with the look of her
web and hid herself at the side of it under a furze branch. She
watched and waited. She waited all night long and nothing
happened.
CHAPTER III
A NARROW ESCAPE
In the morning she was still watching and waiting, but at last there
was a sound. A deep humming was heard in the air as if a fairy
aeroplane were passing. It was so loud that even deaf Emma might
have heard it if she had not been too busy. Just then, however, her
hairs had received a wireless message to say there was a catch at
the far end of her web. Although a spider is much more patient than
you, and can sit still a long time, it is a quick mover when there is
need for speed. Emma darted out like a flash of lightning and found
a fly struggling in her web. It was a very small thin one, and poor
hungry Emma was disappointed not to see a larger joint for her
larder. She quickly settled it, however, and spun some web round it
to wrap it up, for, after all, it was something to eat and so worth
taking care of. She was still busy with her parcel when “Buzz, buzz,
buzz,” the whole web gave a big jump and there quite close to
Emma was a huge, terrible beast. A great angry yellow wasp,
making frightful growling noises and struggling desperately to get out
of the web. Poor Emma wasn’t very old or daring and she knew the
danger she was in, for this savage monster could kill her easily with
his sting. He was fighting hard against the sticky meshes of the web
and jerking himself nearer to her. She was too frightened to move,
and for a minute she hung on to her web limp and motionless looking
like a poor little dead spider. Then something happened. The wind
blew a little puff, the wasp put out all his strength and gave a twist,
the web already torn broke into a big hole and the great yellow beast
was free. He glared at Emma and hovered over her, buzzing
furiously. He would have liked to kill her, but luckily he was too afraid
of getting tangled up again in that sticky, clinging web, so, grumbling
loudly, he flew away.
“What did Emma do?”
Well, she quickly got over her fright and I think she had a little
lunch off her lean fly; then she looked at her web and was sorry to
see it so torn and spoilt. The best thing to do was to mend it then
and there, and as a spider always has more silk in her pocket, so to
speak, she was able to do it at once. She repaired it so well that it
didn’t look a bit as if it had been patched but just as if the new piece
had always been there, the pattern was just as perfect.
CHAPTER IV
ABOUT WEBS
I don’t believe you are feeling a bit afraid of spiders now, are you?
There is no reason why we should fear them, for they don’t bite or
sting us; and if they did the poison that paralyses and kills their prey
would not hurt us. Besides, they kill the insects that harm us. I saw a
spider’s web once full of mosquitoes, and you know what worrying
little pests they are. I was glad to see so many caught, but sorry for
the spider, as they didn’t look a very substantial meal. Then you
know how dangerous flies have been found to be, making people ill
by poisoning their food, so it is a good thing that spiders help us to
get rid of them.
Another reason to like spiders is for their webs. There is no animal
or insect that makes anything quite so wonderful and beautiful as
what these little creatures spin.
The spider’s web is really a snare for catching her food. The
strands of it are so fine as often to be invisible in some lights even in
the daytime, and of course quite invisible at night. Sometimes the
beetle or flying insect is so strong that he can tear the web and get
free, but not often, for the spider can do wonders with her thread.
She spins ropes and throws them at her big prey and doesn’t go
near it till it is bound and helpless.
Of course, there are many different kinds of spiders who spin
different kinds of webs. In a hotter country than this there is one that
is as big or rather bigger than your hand, and another called the
Tarantula whose bite is supposed to be so poisonous that it can kill
people, but this is very exaggerated.
A Beautiful Web.
As the spider’s web is only her snare, she naturally has to have
some kind of home, which must be quite near to her place of
business. If you look very close and follow one of the strands of the
web you will find some little dark cranny where the huntress can
hide. If the web is amongst trees it will probably be a leaf she has
pulled together with her thread and made into a dark little tunnel out
of which she darts when something is caught.
Now before we leave the spiders’ webs you may wonder why you
never see them so clearly as they show in the photographs, and I will
tell you the reason. You see if the spiders’ nets which are set to
catch sharp-eyed insects were always to show as clearly as they do
in the pictures, I am afraid they would really starve, for no fly would
be silly enough to go into such a bright trap. But sometimes in the
autumn, very early in the morning, the dew hangs in tiny beads on
the webs, and makes them show up clearly, and then it is that the
photographs are taken. If you get up early some still September
morning, just about the same time as the sun, and go for a walk in a
wood, or even along a country road, you may see the webs with
what look like strings of the tiniest pearls on them, and you will find
that until the sun has dried up all the little wet pearls, which are of
course dewdrops, the poor spider has not a ghost of a chance of
catching anything.
But to return to the spider herself. The one you know best is
probably the house-spider. It has eight legs and a body rather the
shape of a fat egg, with a little round bead of a head. It runs up the
walls, sometimes hanging by a thread from the ceiling, and seems
very fond of the corners of the room. How glad these house-spiders
must be when they get to a dirty untidy house, where they will be
safe from the broom. Most of us hate to see cobwebs in our houses,
and get rid of them as quickly as we can.
CHAPTER V
THE LITTLE HOUSE-SPIDER
I will tell you about a little house-spider who had a very exciting
adventure. She had made a beautiful web in the corner of a
bedroom, high up near the ceiling. One day her sensitive hairs told
her there was some sort of disturbance in the room, and looking
down from her web she saw all the furniture being moved out. The
curtains and rugs had gone and the bed was pushed up into a
corner. Then, to her dismay, a huge hairy monster came rushing up
the wall. Of course, it was only a broom, but the poor little spider was
so terrified she thought it was alive. It came nearer and nearer, and
all at once there was a terrific rush and swish right up the wall where
she lived, and web and spider disappeared. It was very alarming, but
you will be glad to hear that the little spider was not killed but only
stunned; and as soon as she came to her senses, she found herself
right in the middle of the broom. She hung on and kept quite still, and
soon the servants went into the kitchen to have some lunch and the
broom was stood up against the wall.
Now was the little spider’s chance to escape, and out she popped.
The coast seemed clear, so she scuttled up the wall and rested on
the top of the door. Spiders haven’t good sight, so she couldn’t see
much of the kitchen, but what she did see looked nice, and she
thought it a much more interesting place than a bedroom, besides
there were some flies about, so she determined to spin another web.
No sooner had she begun when there was a crash like an
earthquake. “Will horrors never cease?” thought the spider. It was
really only the slamming of the door, but it so startled her that she fell
and dropped on to the shoulder of some one who had just come in.
A Snare.
“Oh, Miss Molly!” cried cook, “you’ve got a spider on you, let me
kill it.”
“No, no,” said Molly, “that would be unlucky, besides it’s only a tiny
one,” and she took hold of the thread from which the spider hung
and put it out of doors. Wasn’t that a lucky escape? She ran up the
wall and got on to a window sill. Here she crouched down into a
corner making herself as small as she could for fear of being seen,
and then she fell asleep. You see she had gone through a great deal
that morning, and the excitement had thoroughly tired her out.
When evening came she woke up and felt very hungry, so she
quickly spun a web, and would you believe it, before it was even
finished she felt a quiver, and there was a silly little gnat caught right
in the middle. He was very tiny, but the spider wasn’t big, and he
made a very good meal for her. She didn’t stop even to wrap him up,
for she couldn’t wait, but gobbled him up on the spot.
CHAPTER VI
BABY SPIDERS
Before a spider lays her eggs, she spins some web on the ground.
She goes over it again and again, spinning all the time, till it looks
like a piece of gauze. Into this she lays her eggs—often over a
hundred—and covers them with more web and then wraps them up
into a round ball. I don’t suppose you would think it, but a spider is a
very devoted mother, and this white ball is so precious to her that
she carries it everywhere she goes and never lets it out of her sight.
She will hold it for hours in the sun to help to hatch the eggs, and
she would fight anything that tried to hurt it or take it away from her.
It is the same when the eggs are hatched out, for her babies are
always with her. Their home is on her back, and as there is such a
swarm of them, they cover her right up and you often can’t see the
spider for the young. Often some of them drop off, but they are
active little things and they soon climb on again. As long as they live
with their mother they have nothing to eat. This fasting, however,
doesn’t seem to hurt them for they are very lively; the only thing is
they don’t grow.
It doesn’t seem to matter very much even to grown-up spiders to
go without their dinners for several days. And when they do at last
get some food they gorge. They eat and eat and eat, and instead of
making themselves ill like you would do, they seem to feel very
comfortable and are able to go hungry again for some time. Perhaps
it is because, as babies, they got used to doing without food.
CHAPTER I
JOAN AND THE CANARIES
I wonder if you have ever watched young chickens. You can’t help
liking such babyish, fluffy little things; they are so sweet and so
different from the grown-up hens. I know a little girl who cried out,
“Look at all those canaries!” Of course, they are not really a bit like
canaries, and it was only because of their yellow coats that she
made the mistake.
Chickens are so lively and cheery, too; even when they are only a
day old they are able to feed themselves, and will run about picking
up grain. For such babies they are quite bold and will wander off a
long way from the coop, but when anything alarming comes along
they will all rush back to Mother Hen, making funny little peeping
noises showing they are rather frightened; and she answers, “Tuk,
tuk,” as much as to say, “You are little sillies, but I’m very fond of
you,” and takes them under her wing.
Joan was the little girl who had called them canaries, and you may
guess how she got teased about it. She had come to stay with an
aunt who had a farm, and as Joan had always lived in a town, she
couldn’t be expected to know very much about animals or birds. She
liked the cows and the goats and the horses but she loved the
chickens best of all. When she was missing, her aunt always knew
where to find her, and the chickens seemed to know her too and
were tamer with her than with any one else.
When anything alarming comes along they will all rush back to Mother Hen.
CHAPTER II
THE WORM
As yet only one small family of chickens had come out of their
eggs but they were quite enough for Joan to play with. She soon
made friends with them and gave them all names. There were:
Honeypot, Darkie, Piggy, Fluffy, Cheeky, Dolly and Long-legs. Darkie
was rather different from the others; he was a lively little chick with a
dark coat and white shirt front. Cheeky was the boldest and most
impudent. He would cock his little head on one side and stare at
Joan, and he was always the last to run to Mother Hen if anything
was the matter.
Dolly found a worm.
This is really what happened; it is quite true for Joan saw it all. I
am not quite so sure that the cock actually used these words
because, you see, Joan couldn’t understand his language, but she
thought he said something very like it.
CHAPTER III
JOAN SAVES A CHICKEN’S LIFE