As insects have fixed eyes, which cannot move,
they would be very badly off without these many points of view.
I wonder whether you ever had a good look at a spider, or whether you
learnt when you were almost a baby to think it a "horrid creature"; so that
now, when you might be watching it at its work, your first notion is to get
out of its way as fast as possible.
Some creatures are really harmful, and it is right to keep out of their
way, but it is never right to despise a single thing which God has made,
and when we think that the spider is one of His creatures, one which He
calls "exceeding wise," it does indeed seem a pity not to learn something
about it; and the best way to learn about spiders, as well as all the rest
of the animals, is not only to read about them--though that is a very great
help to begin with--but to observe and study their habits for ourselves.
Ernest is fond of repeating a poem about King Robert the Bruce; how, as he
noticed a spider six times fail to climb up its slender thread, but succeed
at the seventh attempt, he took courage to make one more effort for his
lost kingdom, and succeeded.
This was long, long ago; but Kings and Commons have yet their tugs of war;
and for old and young it is still all honour to those who
"Try, try, try till they win,
Brave with the thought that despair is a sin--
Who fights on God's side is sure to win."
There are a great many spiders, of which we cannot now learn much more than
the names which have been given them; but the true story of their lives,
and the wonderful way in which they overcome all sorts of difficulties, if
rightly read, would make us feel that many a lesson of patient toil may be
learnt from such busy little weavers, and engineers, and divers.
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