SCIENTIFIC FANTASIES.

A RE-INSTALLATION AND A DRAMA.

[Translated from Berthoud by B. Harrison.]

I.

With animals it is the same as with men; some enjoy an unmerited reputation, while others find themselves the subjects of an undeserved opprobrium.

Among the victims of popular prejudice, I would mention the Toad.

Yes! at this name alone, you begin to exclaim against the ugliness of the animal, the venom he ejaculates, and a thousand other calumnies with which the poor beast is very unjustly charged.

I will not seek to disguise the fact—granted, the toad is ugly; but, then, I do not think that ugliness hinders those who are afflicted with it from possessing a crowd of excellent qualities and virtues. The negro Eustache and M. de Monthyon were not handsome, and yet the former, with the acclamations of all France, has been crowned by the Academy; the latter has consecrated his immense fortune to charitable institutions. We could further cite, in support of our opinion, a great number of politicians, nay even of artists, who have attained renown far otherwise than by the regularity of their features or by their personal attractions; but we would not pain any one.

Now, as to the toad, though he is ugly and calumniated he does not the less possess a multitude of domestic virtues, which ought to place him far higher in the esteem of impartial persons, than the dove, whom we cite so often as a model of tenderness, yet who, let it be noticed in passing, employs one half of her life in quarreling with her mate, and the other in exchanging with him blows of the beak, often bloody.

If you doubt the truth of my assertions, be kind enough to follow me into the forest of Meudon, where toads are found in greater abundance perhaps than any where else in the environs of Paris.

And first, do you hear in the distance that strange chant which is not wanting in melody and charm, when it rises afar in the air, like the plaint of love? That little cry, flute-like, short, monotonous, repeated several times in succession, at brief intervals, varies in such a manner, that one seems to hear it retire and approach on one side or another, like the sound of a trumpet by which the motions of a flag are directed. The greater part of the time one can not determine whence proceeds this strange music, often attributed to some bird, and without our being willing to acknowledge the obscure and unknown singer who produces it. It is the announcement of the betrothal—it is the love-song of the Batrachian.

Never was love more sincere, or more devoted. When once the toad has pledged his faith to a spouse, not only does he exhibit toward her a romantic fidelity, but he, moreover, protects her at the peril, and often even at the sacrifice of his life. If any one attacks a female, the male rushes in front of the aggressor, provokes him swells himself out in sign of defiance, and endeavors to irritate him, in order to give his companion time to fly, and take refuge in a safe asylum.

If, on the other hand, nothing disturbs him, he quits not his spouse for a moment; he surrounds her with anxious and tender attentions, lays before her the most delicate morsels of the prey he hunts for her, only eats after she has finished, and altogether acts in a manner, that might make many a Parisian husband blush. Further, he is fiery, jealous; he permits no rival to approach her to whom he is united. Woe to the audacious one who would seek to win her affection! almost invariably he pays with his life for his impudent endeavors.

This model husband, when he becomes a father has no less tenderness for his children than for their mother. When the hour, dear to the ancient Lucina, arrives, it is he who performs for his companion, the tender duties of the occasion; he takes the eggs in his arms, and places them along the body of the female, to which they remain attached till the period of hatching.

At this epoch alone, the female approaches the water, in it she deposits her eggs, and therein the eggs undergo the different transformations peculiar to the Batrachians. Then the double mission of father and mother is ended.

You see, that in writing an eulogium on the toad, and in seeking to re-install him in public favor, we have not been utopian.

Besides, the toad is a very sociable animal, and readily becomes the companion and the friend of man. Often, he establishes his dwelling in our houses. Pennant relates the history of a toad, who took up his abode under a staircase, and who, every evening as soon as he saw the lights, came into the dining-room. He suffered himself to be taken up and placed on the table, where they fed him with worms, flies, and wood-lice. He took these insects delicately, inflated himself to express his gratitude, and knew very well how to ask them to put him on the table, when they pretended not to be willing to do so. This toad lived thirty-six years, and then was the victim of an accident.

II.

Another being, no less contemptuously regarded than the toad, is the spider; and yet the study of the spider's habits, would render him, who gave himself up to it, witness of fantastic and tragic dramas, often of a nature to throw into the shade all that our gloomiest melodramatists invent, even of the most sinister and most affecting kind.

One day, a spider fell into a large glass vase, forgotten for a long time in a library. How, and by what course of peripatetics this accident happened, I know not. I can only tell you, that it was a large domestic spider, with an enormous oval abdomen, and its back of a blackish color, on which were marked two longitudinal lines of yellow spots. The animal caught in this transparent snare, as a wolf in a pitfall, set to work, running round the bottom of the vase, with all the speed his eight legs could achieve.

When he had satisfied himself that no outlet was to be found on the ground-floor, he attempted to scale the glassy sides, which formed around him a circle of slippery and invisible walls; but his claws, sharp and bent like the tiger's, slipped on the hard, bare crystal, and after a quarter of an hour spent in the useless struggle, he fell back fatigued, discouraged, and panting into the middle of the vase. There he rolled and gathered his limbs together, resigned to die, as a gladiator of old kneeled in the midst of the arena, when he saw the Roman ladies raise their white hands and depress their delicate thumbs, to demand the death of the victim.

A witness of the captive's efforts, feeling curious to know what would be the other acts of the drama now begun, took the glass vase and placed it in his cabinet, where there was the least light, so that he might be able to watch the spider without disturbing it.

The latter remained immovable, rolled up, and dead to all appearance, until night closed in. Then, the observer, carelessly stretched in his easy chair, heard a movement, imperceptible, but which sounded at the bottom of the vase. He drew near to it with a light—immediately the spider feigned death. He was obliged, therefore, for that evening, to give up knowing all that took place, and the prisoner remained free from surveillance till the next day morning.

Then it was seen that the bottom of the vase was diapered all round, and about an inch up, with myriads of little whitish points, placed at distances almost geometrically regular. The spider slept in the middle.

The next day silver threads were found, starting from each of these points to those opposite; these formed the warp of the web. The third day, the woof enlaced the threads of the warp, and thus a vast net was made to outstretch above the bottom of the glass vase; and some threads, arranged at equal distances, fixed this elastic floor, and rendered it firm.

The spider, notwithstanding these gigantic labors, remained still in view, and wanted a dwelling. It had indeed a floor, or rather a carpet, on which it could walk without wearing or breaking its claws; the nets for hunting were stretched, but there was need of an apartment where it could find shelter and concealment, besides, it had no bed to sleep on.

With difficulty and unheard-of trouble, it succeeded in fixing, at some distance above the net, thirty of the white points, of which I told you before. These served as fixtures for a roof, which was constructed down to the net, rounded, fashioned little by little like a horn, furnished with threads finer, silkier, more closely woven, and more deeply colored, and thus became a nest impenetrable to the eye, and impervious to moisture. Some drops of water poured on this dwelling glided down its walls without penetrating them the least in the world, fell in trembling pearls through the net, and stopped at the bottom of the vase, where they evaporated.

The spider had drawn the threads, which an approximative calculation might estimate, without exaggeration, at two thousand feet in length, from six spinners attached to the abdomen, and which secrete a grayish fluid, instantly transformed, by contact with the air, into silky threads, and of astonishing strength, if we consider their tenuity! A single spider's-thread, if not broken by a shock, will sustain a weight of 270 grains!

Once his establishment finished, the spider took to passing the days and nights on the threshold of his dwelling, waiting with unexampled patience until chance should bring him some prey. This, however, did not happen; flies were yet scarce, and there was nothing in the vase of a kind to attract them. Two months rolled by, during which the poor animal grew remarkably thin.

At last, one day, moved by compassion, the observer threw a fly to the famished creature. The little insect fell on the net, caught its wings in the invisible meshes, which covered the principal tissue, and struggled violently. Immediately the spider ran up, quickly but heavily, seized its prey with its eight feet at once, griped it with its formidable jaws, shaped like a hook, and dragged the body into his nest. An hour after he brought out of his house the remains of the fly, and threw them into the obscurest corner, the one most distant from his web, nor did he leave them without covering them with tissue, so as to hide entirely from sight the aspect of his charnel-house. Thus Brutus cast his mantle over the body of Cæsar.

Every day, at the same hour, the observer threw a fly into the vase. It was not long before he perceived that the spider, as soon as the time for its repast arrived, came out of its retreat, advanced over the web, watched for the fall of the fly, and was no more frightened at the movement, which before caused it to fly and return to its dwelling, when the provider's hand brought its dinner.

A short time later, instead of waiting until he had withdrawn, it ran immediately and with boldness to the fly, and did not even take the trouble to drag it within to eat it. Curious to know how far this familiarity might be carried, he took a fly by one of its wings and presented it to the spider. The first time it returned frightened to its nest, and remained there closely concealed; but the next day, pressed by hunger, it rushed on the fly with the speed of an arrow, seized it, and hurried away with it to the recesses of its apartments. Once and again and again, the observer repeated this trial. At the end of this time, the spider fed on the fly in the fingers of the observer. It went so far even as to come out of the vase by the help of the finger its master presented. Thus free, it ran along the wrist, the arm, and the breast of the naturalist to get a fly which he held in his other hand as far off as possible.

The observer took a lively interest in his pensioner, and loved it almost as much as Pelisson did his. He procured then some books on natural history, in order to find out to which sex the spider of the glass vase belonged. He ascertained that it was a female by the filiform pulps which were lengthened near her jaws, and by the legs of the thorax being shorter and broader than those of the abdomen. Having made this discovery, he resolved to marry the recluse, and for this purpose sought a male of handsome appearance and worthy of the tenderness of so lovely a conquest. He had little difficulty; for it was spring time, and love moved the Arachnides as well as the rest of nature.

Once in possession of a fine male with pulps well swelled, limbs long and slender, eight bright eyes, and a conquering and off-hand address, he brought it in triumph to his guest. He laid him softly on the web, at the extremity opposite the spider's nest, and withdrew to a little distance, yet so that he could still observe all that took place.

Soon he saw the coquette come out of her boudoir, and advance toward the stranger with that voluptuous movement which imparts such a lively charm to the walk of Spanish ladies, and which Fanny Ellsler reproduced with so much grace, poetry, and felicity in those days, already growing distant, when she danced at the Opera. I assure you that to see her thus, this hideous creature was beautiful, gilded by the glorious beams of her passion, and glistening with the halo of love. For his part, the male did not show himself awkward, but made proof of his fashion and gallantry his fore-feet caressed in a subduing manner the demi-curves formed by his legs; a sub-lieutenant of hussars could not put more foppery into the twisting of the conquering bends of his curled mustache. He advanced toward her at a rapid pace, stamping with his feet, strutting, fluttering; the lady recoiled and fled, but in such a manner as to let him divine that she wished to be followed. The happy lover sped on after her retreating steps. Nevertheless he began to exhibit a singular reserve and fear, the evidence of which, however, was unmistakable. On her part, the female waited for him with a cunning which gave her eyes a strange expression. At length she turned her head and walked right before him, preoccupied as it appeared, in getting rid of some threads in which her feet were caught.

Then the male bounded on her, seized her in his arms, gave her a kiss, and took to flight—she turned. It was no longer a bold coquette that walked, it was a lioness that chases her prey; it was Diana before Actæon. The male, all trembling, sought to fly; he attempted to climb the sides of the vase. Vain efforts! Margaret of Burgundy advanced to her victim; fascinated him; stopped him. The unfortunate one betook himself to a corner trembling. She, her claw high and threatening as a poinard, struck him, slew him, and, after having contemplated him, who was but ere now her husband, she devoured him.

The observer, curious to learn the motives of so much barbarity, wished to ascertain if the death of the poor male was the chastisement of a personal fault, or the result of a system of assassination. He therefore put another male into the vase. Alas! no room was left for doubt! the crime of this cruel wife was without excuse, without extenuating circumstances; the most humane jury must have condemned her with all the aggravations foreseen by the law! The second victim shared the same fate as the first. To this wretch, murder was a necessity after love. During a whole month she lived on the corpses of her husbands.

While this month rolled on she was contented with devouring nothing but the male spiders, which were thrown in. Soon after, however, she found this dish palling and insipid, refused to eat, but not to kill them, and returned to flies with an evident pleasure.

Notwithstanding so many murders, the spider continued always to lead a peaceful life, undisturbed by remorse, in her vase of glass.

One day the window of the apartment, where the vase was, was left open; a swallow entered the room, saw the spider, and with a single blow of his beak, avenged all the victims of the murderess, so well, that the vase was found and may to this day be found empty and without a guest.

We promised you a re-installation and a drama! Have we not kept our promise?