A summer at his country house in France must have turned Dalrymple's attention to nature, for while his first New English Review piece this month was on mice, the second, available here, contains idle musings on spiders and other insects.
Interesting. I have arachnophobia, not serious but probably not so mild either although I'm much better now than I use to be. However I've always been fascinated by spiders, and insects and creatures more generally but especially spiders.
I recall once I was cleaning the supports of an outdoor water tank -three metal uprights, like train tracks – with a wire brush. There was a small spider nursing an egg sack so I decided to transport the spider to a nearby tree. Having done so I then thought I'd try to do like wise with the egg sack "I wonder if it will take it back".
Not only did the spider take it back I kept an eye on it for a while and it created, spun?, a rather elaborate ermm… rigging system whereby it gradually hoisted the egg sack (rather than just drag it like I presume it could do with a similar sized fly) into a snug position on a leaf.
I did a similar thing once whereby I separated a jumping spider from its prey; a cockroach type of insect easily twice its size. The spider was on a plant, I wondered, again, "Will it retake its prey if I place it nearby, or does the prey need to be alive?" Well I placed it on a the same branch, as I recall… I don't recall having to coax the spider in the right direction (bit hard with a Jumping spider), maybe it took more than one attempt, I do recall quite clearly how the spider suddenly locked eyes onto it and then pounced. So no, the prey does not need to be alive and moving.
As it happens I rather like Jumping spiders, I can quite happily handle them unlike other spiders. If I had my own house I think I would start a collection of Jumping spiders and Praying mantis (separated).
Some years back I was in Delphi in Greece and went for a bit of a hike up the mountain above Delphi (I suppose it's part of the greater Mt Parnassus) anyway it wasn't long before I started doing what I use to do as a child; looking under stones. Actually I'm pretty sure it was the very first stone I over turned and bingo, there was a spider, not so large, about 3cm including legs. However it was a bit like one of those gruesome Sydney funnel web's. That's all it took, I spent the best part of two hours turning over rocks and rotten trees, looking for the big one.
I did eventually find a rather impressive, though dead, specimen under a large rotten log. It was appropriately shrouded in a very dense nest of webbing. It wasn't huge by any means but it was substantially bigger and darker than the previous one, with big fangs. I'd be surprised if they get much bigger.
Mission accomplished as far as I was concerned; mind you I failed that day to get to the Korycian (Koykion) cave which was my intention.