RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29716, 9 January 1962, Page 15

RANDOM REMINDER

PROTOTYPE It is not the habit of this column to study insect life, although there is a strong suspicion, when gardening, that every spadeful turned over will contain a corps of angry katipo spiders. But just the other day. when thinking of this and that and looking out of the ‘window on to a stone retaining wall which is part of this column’s domestic prison. there was a Daddy Long Legs which commanded attention. It was presumably Macromastix Albistigna. But it didn’t look as if it

should bear such a burden. The insect was apparently trying to descend. It made tentative little swoops with its fragile legs; it cast about it, worried, self - conscious, perhaps late for dinner. After a quarter of an hour, it was still circling about in its Micawberish fashion, and this column had time to reflect on the insect’s inadequacies. The Daddy Long Legs is abhorred by most women, ignored by those of sterner stock. It looks futile, and it is. It has no reputation for*

persistence, such as was enjoyed by Bruce’s spider: it is not noted, like the ant, for industry. Children seldom include it in their collection of things living and very dead. It is unlovely and unloved. The Daddy Long Legs probably plays a virtuous part in the general scheme of things, but it is unnoticed. It is a waffler, and ungainly and uncertain traveller dawn life’s long and tortuous path. In fact, the only firm conclusion to be reached about it is that it is very like us.