verse, rhyme and
rhythm, carried the worthy fabulist further than he intended: he meant to
say that, in a fight between mastiffs and in other brute conflicts, the
stronger is left master of the bone. He well knew that, as things go,
success is no certificate of excellence. Others came, the notorious evil-
doers of humanity, who made a law of the savage maxim that might is
right.

We are the larvae with the changing skins, the ugly caterpillars of a
society that is slowly, very slowly, wending its way to the triumph of
right over might. When will this sublime metamorphosis be accomplished?
To free ourselves from those wild-beast brutalities, must we wait for the
ocean-plains of the southern hemisphere to flow to our side, changing the
face of continents and renewing the glacial period of the Reindeer and
the Mammoth? Perhaps, so slow is moral progress.

True, we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship and other
marvellous means of breaking our bones; but our morality is not one rung
the higher for it all. One would even say that, the farther we proceed
in our conquest of matter, the more our morality recedes. The most
advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down with grapeshot
and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing the corn.

Would we see this might triumphant in all its beauty? Let us spend a few
weeks in the Epeira's company. She is the owner of a web, her work, her
most lawful property. The question at once presents itself: Does the
Spider possibly recognize her fabric by certain trademarks and
distinguish it from that of her fellows?

I bring about a change of webs between two neighbouring Banded Epeirae.
No sooner is either placed upon the strange net than she makes for the
central floor, settles herself head downwards and does not stir from it,
satisfied with her neighbour's web as with her own. Neither by day nor
by night does she try to shift her quarters and restore matters to their
pristine state. Both Spiders think themselves in their own domain. The
two pieces of work are so much alike that I almost expected this.

I then decide to effect an exchange of webs between two different
species. I move the Banded Epeira to the net of the Silky Epeira and
vice versa. The two webs are now dissimilar; the Silky Epeira's has a
limy spiral consisting of closer and more numerous circles. What will
the Spiders do, when thus put to the test of the unknown? One w