their destiny, to _eat_ or _be eaten_. What else can they do? Human
beings would do the same under the same circumstances; and I have never
seen the least sign of personal spite or malignity in the spider. There
is no pursuit, for there is no escape; and we can only conclude that, as
the new-born fish's first nourishment is the contents of the yolk-sac,
partly outside, though still a portion of its body, so the first food of
the young spiders is, if not themselves, the next best thing,--each
other. Thus it is provided that the smaller and less vigorous shall
furnish food for the larger until the latter are strong enough to
venture forth in search of other means of support.

In consequence of this mutual destruction, aided materially by the
depredations of birds and of other insects, and by exposure to the
weather, only about one per cent of those hatched reach maturity. If
properly protected, however, a far larger proportion may be saved; and
as their multiplication is so rapid, no fear need be entertained of a
limit to the supply.

By keeping these little spiders in glass jars, inverted, and with a wet
sponge at the bottom, they were easily watched and cared for. At first
only about one twentieth of an inch long and nearly as wide, they
increased in length as they grew, but for many weeks lived in common on
an irregular web, feeding together on the crushed flies or bugs thrown
to them. But when one fourth of an inch in length, they showed a
disposition to separate, and to spin each for herself a regular web,
out of which all intruders were kept. And now it was found that all
these webs were _inclined_ at nearly the same angle, and were _never
exactly vertical_; that, like the spider in the first web she made in
the Botanical Garden, the insect took a position much nearer the upper
than the lower border; and also that, instead of a web of _perfect
circles_ laid upon _regular radii_, as used to be described and is still
figured in our books, or even one of a _spiral line_, as is now more
correctly described of ordinary geometrical spiders (Fig. 6), these
never made a circle, nor even a spiral, but a _series of concentric
loops_ or arcs of circles, the lines turning back upon themselves before
reaching a point over the spider, and leaving the larger portion of the
web below her; and more than this, that the lines, though quite regular,
were by no means perfectly so, as may be seen in Fig. 7, copied from a
photograph.