5. THE SPIDER'S TELEGRAPH-WIRE

JEAN HENRI FABRE

Reading directions: Find (a) how Fabre obtained his information; (b) how the spider's wire is constructed.

If we look carefully behind the web of any spider with a daytime hiding-place, we shall see a thread that starts from the center of the web and reaches the place where the spider lurks. The thread is joined to the web at the central point only. Its length is usually about twenty-two inches, but the angular spider, settled high up in the trees, has shown me some as long as eight or nine feet.

This slanting line is a foot-bridge by which the spider hurries to her web when something is going on there and by which, when her errand is finished, she returns to her hut. But that is not all it is. If it were, the foot-bridge would be fastened to the upper end of the web. The journey would then be shorter and the slope less steep.

The line starts from the center of the net because that is the place where the spokes meet, and therefore is the place where the vibration from any part of the net is best felt. Anything that moves upon the web sets it shaking. All that is needed is a thread going from this central point to carry to a distance the news of a prey struggling in some part of the net. The slanting cord is more than a foot-bridge: it is a signaling-apparatus, a telegraph-wire.

In their youth, the garden spiders, who are then very wideawake, know nothing of the art of telegraphy. Only the old spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, are warned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the net.

To save herself from the drudgery of keeping a close watch, and to remain alive to events even when resting with her back turned on the net, the hidden spider always has her foot upon the telegraph-wire. Here is a true story to prove it.

An angular spider has spun her web between two shrubs, covering a width of nearly a yard. Because the sun beats upon the snare, the owner abandons it long before dawn. The spider is in her day house, a resort easily discovered by following the tele

graph-wire, a vaulted chamber of dead leaves joined together with a few bits of silk. The refuge is deep; the spider disappears in it entirely, all but her hind-quarters, which bar the entrance. With her front half plunged into the back of her hut, the spider certainly cannot see her web; she could not see it even if she had good sight, instead of being half blind as she is. Does she give up hunting during this period of brightness? Not at all. Look again. Wonderful! One of her hind-legs is stretched outside the leafy cabin; the signaling-thread ends just at the top of that leg. Whoever has not seen the spider in this attitude, with her hand, so to speak, on the telegraph-receiver, knows nothing of one of the most curious examples of animal cleverness. Let any game appear upon the scene and the slumberer, at once aroused by means of the leg receiving the vibrations, hastens up. A locust which I myself lay on the web gives her this agreeable shock, and what follows? If she is satisfied with her prey, I am still more satisfied with what I have learned.

One word more. The web is often shaken by the wind. The signaling-cord must pass this vibration to the spider. Nevertheless, she does not leave her hut; she remains indifferent to the commotion prevailing in the net. Her line, therefore, is something better than a bell-rope; it is a telephone, capable, like our own, of transmitting tiny waves of sound. Clutching her telephone-wire with a toe, the spider listens with her leg; she can tell the difference between the vibration coming from a prisoner and the mere shaking caused by the wind.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Read the part of the selection which told how Fabre obtained his information. What told you how the spider's wire is constructed? 2. Tell the class about the size and shape of spiders' webs that you have seen. Name other ways by which insects, animals, or birds send signals to each other.

3. When a little girl called a telegraph-wire a "message vine," she changed prose into poetry. Of the two following sentences, which is prose? which is poetry?

"There was a garden in her face
Where lilies and red roses blow."

She had a beautiful red-andwhite complexion.

What, then, is one of the differences between prose and poetry?

4. Volunteer reports: (a) How ants send and receive messages; (b) how

people "hunt with the camera."

6. THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL TELEGRAPH

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE

Every good story or poem or play or explanation - any piece of wellwritten reading matter — is a whole made up of parts. Very frequently the whole is suggested by the title, as for instance in this selection, "The First Successful Telegraph." Always the whole is the main idea or the central thought which the writer is trying to develop. A skilful reader is able to see how the writer expresses his central or main idea, by breaking it up into parts and by making those parts fit together.

There are three main links in this narrative. Find where the second and the third links begin. After you have finished reading, write a name suitable for each link.

I spent at Washington two entire sessions of Congress, in 1837 and in 1842, endeavoring to interest the government in the telegraph that they might furnish me with the means of constructing a line of sufficient length to test its practicability and utility.

The last days of the last session of Congress were about to close. A bill appropriating thirty thousand dollars for my purpose had passed the House, and was before the Senate, waiting its turn on the calendar.

On the last day of the session, the 3rd of March, 1843, I spent the whole day and part of the evening in the Senate chamber, anxiously watching the progress of the various bills, of which there were over one hundred and forty to be acted upon, before the one in which I was interested would be reached. A resolution had been passed a few days before to proceed with the bills on the calendar in their regular order, forbidding any bill to be taken up out of its regular place.

As evening approached, there seemed but little chance that the Telegraph Bill would be reached before the adjournment, and consequently I had the prospect of a delay of another year, with the loss of time, and all my means already expended.

In my anxiety, I consulted with two of my senatorial friends, asking their opinion of the probability of reaching the bill before the close of the session. Their answers were discouraging; their advice was to prepare myself for disappointment.

In this state of mind I retired to my chamber and made my arrangements for leaving Washington the next day. Painful as

was the prospect of renewed disappointment, you will understand me when I say that, knowing from experience whence my help must come in any difficulty, I soon disposed of my cares and slept as quietly as a child.

In the morning, just as I had gone into the breakfast-room, a servant called me out, announcing that a young lady was in the parlor, wishing to speak with me. I was at once greeted with the smiling face of my young friend, the daughter of my old and valued friend and classmate, the Honorable H. L. Ellsworth, the Commissioner of Patents.

On expressing my surprise at so early a call, she said: "I have come to congratulate you."

"Indeed, for what?"

"On the passage of your bill."

"Oh, no, my young friend, you are mistaken; I was in the Senate chamber till after the lamps were lighted, and my senatorial friends assured me there was no chance for me."

"But," she replied, "it is you that are mistaken. Father was there at the adjournment, at midnight, and saw the President put his name to your bill. I asked father if I might come and tell you, and he gave me leave. Am I the first to tell you?"

The news was so unexpected that for some moments I could not speak. At length I replied: "Yes, Annie, you are the first; and now I am going to make you a promise: the first despatch on the completed line from Washington to Baltimore shall be yours."

"Well," said she, "I shall hold you to your promise.'

In about a year from that time the line from Washington to Baltimore was completed. I was in Baltimore when the wires were brought into the office and attached to the instrument. I proceeded to Washington, leaving word that no despatch should be sent through the line until I had sent one from Washington.

On my arrival there, I sent a note to Miss Ellsworth, telling her that everything was ready, and that I was prepared to fulfil my promise of sending the first despatch over the wires, which she was to write.

The answer was immediately returned. The despatch was: "What hath God wrought!"

The message was sent to Baltimore, and repeated to Washington. The strip of paper upon which the telegraphic characters are printed was claimed by Governor Seymour, of Hartford, Connecticut, then a member of the House, on the ground that Miss Ellsworth was a native of Hartford. It was delivered to him by Miss Ellsworth, and is now preserved in the archives of the Hartford Museum.

I need only add that no words could have been selected more expressive of the thought of my own mind at that time, to give all the honor to Him to whom it truly belongs.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. What are the best names for the three links in Morse's account? 2. What is the chief difference between the help Morse received and that received by McCormick (p. 155); by Kelly (p. 157)? To whom does the federal government give financial help? Why? 3. Discussion: Which is the greatest invention, the telephone, the telegraph, or the radio?

4. Volunteer work:

a. Did the federal government help Ford? Wright brothers? McCormick? Morse? Edison? Other inventors?

b. Find out about photographs sent by telegraph or telephone and explain to the class how they are sent.

c. Read an account of the first telegraph in your school histories or other books. Does it agree with Morse's story? Which account is the most interesting? Why?