Word: spider
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...Australia and Africa there are spiders that catch their victims by a sort of combination lasso and harpoon. They attach a drop of sticky gum to a length of silky thread, and whirl this apparatus around their heads. When something edible approaches, the spider slings the globule. If it hits, it sticks, and the spider reels in the victim-playing it, if necessary, as a human angler does a fish...
These and many more absorbing details of the arachnids' life are contained in a new book, The Spider, published in England, by John Crompton (author of The Hunting Wasp). Crompton, who describes himself as a layman writing for laymen, writes vividly and with vast enthusiasm. At various times he has been a mounted policeman in Rhodesia, a shipping-firm employee in China, an R.A.F. pilot, a novelist, a beekeeper. He has read-and liberally quotes-the experts, including the great Frenchman J. H. Fabre (TIME, Aug. 22) and several Americans. But his book is larded with personal observations...
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...
...YORK, May 17 (AP--The New York Giants today bought third baseman John (Spider) Jorgenson from Brooklyn, and at the same time sold catcher Ray Mueller to Pittsburgh for more than the waiver price...
...Spider Webb was the winning pitcher, having relieved starter Ira God in, who departed for a pinch hitter on the short end of a 2 to 0 score in the sixth inning. Webb was soon given a 4 to 2 lead, but gradually grew more and more ineffective until M.I.T. finally caught up with him in the ninth...