WHAT A SPIDER EATS PER DIEM.

Wanganui Herald, Volume III, Issue 518, 29 January 1869, Page 2

WHAT A SPIDER EATS PER DIEM.

In order to test what a spider can do in the way of eating, we arose about daybreak to supply his fine web with a fly. At first, however, the spider did not come from his retreat, so we. peeped among the leaves and there discovered that an earwig- had been caught, and was now being feasted on. The spider left the earwig, coiled up the fly, and at once returned to his "first course." This was at 51 a.m. in September. At 7 a.m. the earwig had been demolished, and the spider, after resting awhile, and probably enjoying a nap, came down for the fly which he had finished at 9 a.m. A little after 9 we supplied him with a daddy long legs, which he ate at norm. At one o'clock a blowfly was greedily seized, and then immediately, with an appetite apparently no worse for his previous indulgence, he commenced on the blowfly. During- the day and towards evening a great many small green flies, or what are popularly termed midges, had been caught in the web ; of these we counted 120 all dead and fast prisoners in the spider's net. Soon after dark, provided with a lantern, we went to examine whether the spider was suffering from indigestion or in any other way from the previous meals; instead, however, of being thus affected, he was employed in rolling up together the various little green midges when he took them to his retreat and tea. This process he repeated, carrying up the lots in little detachments, for the web and its contents were bundled up together. A slight rest of about an hour was followed 'by the most industrious web-making process, and before daybreak another web was rendv to be used in. the same way. Taking the relative size of the spider and of the creatures it ate, and applying this to a man, it would .be, somewhat as follows :—At daybreak a small alligator was eaten; at seven a.m. a lamb ; at nine a.m. a young-camel-leopard; at one o'clock a sheep, and during' the night 120 larks. This, we believe, would be a very fair allowance for a man during twenty-four hours, and could we find one giftod with such an appetite and digestion, we can readily comprehend how he might spin' five miles of web without killing himself, provided he possessed the necessary machinery.—English paper.