10
Who is there that does not admire, for more reasons than one, the labor of the spiders, which seems as pattern for the threads that women spin and the nets that are used in hunting? For the extraordinary fineness of the spinning, and the evenness of the thread, not discontinued or snapped off like the yarn upon a quill, but having the smooth and subtle texture of a thin membrane, and knit and spun together with a certain clammy moisture imperceptibly mixed; besides the tincture of it, causing a kind of airy and misty color, the better to deceive; but above all, the conduct and governing of this little engine, in which when any thing happens to be entangled, you see how presently, like an expert huntsman, the subtle artist contracts her net and binds her prey within it;—all this, being every day obvious to our sight and contemplation, gives credit to my discourse, which otherwise might be accounted no less fabulous than what is reported of certain Libyan crows, that, when they are a-thirsty, throw stones into the water, by that means to raise it to such a height that they may be able to reach it with their bills. Then again, when I saw a ship dog, in the absence of the seamen, putting in stones in a half-empty jar of oil, it was to me a wonder how that dog should understand that the pressure of the heavier weight would make the lighter rise.
10
And the same artifices are reported of Cretan bees and Cilician geese. For the first of these, being to take their flight about some windy promontory, ballast themselves with little stones, to prevent their being carried away by the stronger blasts. And as for the geese, they being afraid of the eagles, every time they cross the mountain Taurus, carry great stones in their mouths, to the end that by that means (as it were) bridling their gaggling tongues, they may cross the mountain in silence, without alarming their enemies.
