Abstract
IT cannot be reasonably doubted that one of the most interesting features connected with the natural history of spiders, is their habit of gaining a livelihood by spreading nets for the capture of prey. It may be that the large share of the attention of naturalists that this habit has attracted, is to be attributed to the fact that it appears to be confined in the animal world to spiders and men. This circumstance is of itself sufficiently remarkable to call for special comment; but its interest is not a little enhanced by the reflection, that since spiders made their appearance in the history of animal life vast ages before man came upon the scene, none of us can justly claim that any member of our own kind was the first in the field in the invention of the art of netting. Possibly, indeed, the oft-repeated and unavoidable observation of the efficacy of a spider's web for the purpose of catching otherwise unobtainable prey, may have roused in the brain of some intelligent hunter amongst our ancestors, the idea of the practical utility of a similar instrument for the capture of fish or other eatable forms of life. But if this be so, civilised man has long forgotten the debt of gratitude he owes to spiders. For, to the average individual amongst us, a spider is a thing to be looked upon and spoken of with fear and dislike amounting to loathing, and to be ruthlessly destroyed when a safe chance of destruction is afforded.
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POCOCK, R. Some Suggestions on the Origin and Evolution of Web-Spinning in Spiders. Nature 51, 417–420 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/051417c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051417c0