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Taglagallo Remarcafkus Directory 18
Page 08
I struggled up on my feet and proceeded to carry the big vessels to the river bank, where I intended to construct the raft. The effort to take each heavy bottle those few metres seemed almost beyond me in my exhausted state. At last I proceeded to strip the floor of the hut, which had been made with split _assahy_ palms (_Euterpe oleracea_ L.), in order that I might make a frame to which I could fasten the bottles. With a great deal of persuasion I got Filippe and Benedicto to help me. The long pieces of _assahy_ were too heavy for our purpose, and we had the additional trouble of splitting each piece into four. It was most trying work in our worn-out condition. Then we had to go into the forest and collect some small liane, so that we could tie the pieces together, as we had no nails and no rope.
Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and morally qualified to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of America and of Asia, to form magnificent collections as he wanders, and withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his collections; but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favorite habitation of the Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties of no ordinary magnitude; and the man who risks his life by even a short visit to the malarious shores of those regions may well be excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of the interior; if he contents himself with stimulating the industry of the better-seasoned natives, and collecting and collating the more or less mythical reports and traditions with which they are too ready to supply him.
Spiders, which do not undergo such changes as do most of the common, six-footed insects, winter either as eggs or in the mature form. The members of the "sedentary" or web-spinning group, as a rule, form nests in late autumn, in each of which are deposited from fifty to eighty eggs, which survive the winter and hatch in the spring, as soon as the food supply of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes appear. The different forms of spiders' nests are very interesting objects of study. Some are those close-spun, flat, button-shaped objects, about half an inch in diameter, which are so common in winter on the under side of bark, chunks and flat rocks. Others are balloon-shaped and attached to weeds. Within the latter the young spiders often hatch in early winter, make their first meal off their empty egg cases, and then begin a struggle for existence, the stronger preying upon the weaker until the south winds blow again, when they emerge and scatter far and wide in search of more nutritious sustenance.
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