Seite - 1216 - in The Complete Aristotle

weaving at sunrise or at sunset, because it is chiefly at these periods that creatures are caught in the web. It is the female that does the weaving and the hunting, but the male takes a share of the booty captured. Of the skilful spiders, weaving a substantial web, there are two kinds, the larger and the smaller. The one has long legs and keeps watch while swinging downwards from the web: from its large size it cannot easily conceal itself, and so it keeps underneath, so that its prey may not be frightened off, but may strike upon the web’s upper surface; the less awkwardly formed one lies in wait on the top, using a little hole for a lurking-place. Spiders can spin webs from the time of their birth, not from their interior as a superfluity or excretion, as Democritus avers, but off their body as a kind of tree-bark, like the creatures that shoot out with their hair, as for instance the porcupine. The creature can attack animals larger than itself, and enwrap them with its threads: in other words, it will attack a small lizard, run round and draw threads about its mouth until it closes the mouth up; then it comes up and bites it. < div id=“section220” class=“section” title=“40”> 40 So much for the spider. Of insects, there is a genus that has no one name that comprehends all the species, though all the species are akin to one another in form; it consists of all the insects that construct a honeycomb: to wit, the bee, and all the insects that resemble it in form. There are nine varieties, of which six are gregarious-the bee, the king-bee, the drone bee, the annual wasp, and, furthermore, the anthrene (or hornet), and the tenthredo (or ground-wasp); three are solitary-the smaller siren, of a dun colour, the larger siren, black and speckled, and the third, the largest of all, that is called the humble-bee. Now ants never go a-hunting, but gather up what is ready to hand; the spider makes nothing, and lays up no store, but simply goes a-hunting for its food; while the bee—for we shall by and by treat of the nine varieties—does not go a-hunting, but constructs its food out of gathered material and stores it away, for honey is the bee’s food. This fact is shown by the beekeepers’ attempt to remove the combs; for the bees, when they are fumigated, and are suffering great distress from the process, then devour the honey most ravenously, whereas at other times they are never observed to be so greedy, but apparently are thrifty and disposed to lay by for their future sustenance. They have also another food which is called bee- bread; this is scarcer than honey and has a sweet figlike taste; this they carry 1216