The fabric is too thick and tough to have yielded to the twitches of the feeble little prisoners.  It was the mother, therefore, who, feeling her offspring shuffle impatiently under the silken ceiling, herself made a hole in the bag.  She persists in living for five or six weeks, despite her shattered health, so as to give a last helping hand and open the door for her family.  After performing this duty, she gently lets herself die, hugging her nest and turning into a shrivelled relic.

When July comes, the little ones emerge.  In view of their acrobatic habits, I have placed a bundle of slender twigs at the top of the cage in which they were born.  All of them pass through the wire gauze and form a group on the summit of the brushwood, where they swiftly weave a spacious lounge of criss-cross threads.  Here they remain, pretty quietly, for a day or two; then foot-bridges begin to be flung from one object to the next.  This is the opportune moment.

I put the bunch laden with beasties on a small table, in the shade, before the open window.  Soon, the exodus commences, but slowly and unsteadily.  There are hesitations, retrogressions, perpendicular falls at the end of a thread, ascents that bring the hanging Spider up again.  In short much ado for a poor result.

As matters continue to drag, it occurs to me, at eleven o’clock, to take the bundle of brushwood swarming with the little Spiders, all eager to be off, and place it on the window-sill, in the glare of the sun.  After a few minutes of heat and light, the scene assumes a very different aspect.  The emigrants run to the top of the twigs, bustle about actively.  It becomes a bewildering rope-yard, where thousands of legs are drawing the hemp from the spinnerets.  I do not see the ropes manufactured and sent floating at the mercy of the air; but I guess their presence.

Three or four Spiders start at a time, each going her own way in directions independent of her neighbours’.  All are moving upwards, all are climbing some support, as can be perceived by the nimble motion of their legs.  Moreover, the road is visible behind the climber, it is of double thickness, thanks to an added thread.  Then, at a certain height, individual movement ceases.  The tiny animal soars in space and shines, lit up by the sun.  Softly it sways, then suddenly takes flight.

What has happened?  There is a slight breeze outside.  The floating cable has snapped and the creature has gone off, borne on its parachute.  I see it drifting away, showing, like a spot of light, against the dark foliage of the near cypresses, some forty feet distant.  It rises higher, it crosses over the cypress-screen, it disappears.  Others follow, some higher, some lower, hither and thither.