Word: preys
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...earth for millions of years. During that time they have picked up a few tricks besides the fly-catching web. There are spiders that look like ants and live with ants; others change color, like chameleons, according to the hue of the flowers on which they wait for prey...
Temperamental Artist. Not all spiders make prey-catching webs. Of the web-makers, the genus Aranea is the master weaver and engineer. Aranea spins the familiar but complicated "orb web" a large number of segmented rings on a framework of 25 to 35 spokes. Although the typical orb web may have 13,000 or more tie-lines, the spider makes a new web every day, and, like a temperamental artist, never deigns to do repair work. She* puts glue on the silk to make it sticky. To prevent quick drying (or for some other reason), the glue is concentrated...
When the web is completed, Aranea runs a silken "telephone line" to her nearby lair, and waits for prey. The slightest vibration of the web brings her out on the run. If the victim is a fly or some other small and harmless insect, she drinks its blood on the spot, or paralyzes it with poison from her fangs and takes it to her lair to be kept in storage. If the catch is a big, vigorous, dangerous intruder (a honeybee or a grasshopper), the spider turns her back and squirts out silk in a broad band from...
Stupid Wolf. Among the arachnids which do not make webs are the "wolf spiders" or hunters, which live in little parapets like watchtowers, from which they leap forth and run down their prey by sheer speed. This group includes the stupid Lycosa, which, when deprived of her cocoon containing young, will accept a cork ball of the same shape and fondle it tenderly. There is also the jumping spider, which stalks her prey like a cat, and pounces when in range. The jumping spider has the best eyesight of all arachnids, with four of her eight eyes on the flattened...
BUCKLEY: The graduates of Yale and other universities which follow similar policies will be easy prey to the propagandists who insist that collectivization and various degrees of Socialism are all we need to make our economy stronger. These unguided men will be useful men to the leftist cause...