United States or Saint Martin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All these spiders and their activities including growth, moulting, mating and hatching of babies were monitored by Dr Vijayalakshmi. She had an assistant called Selvan and he followed her instructions, keeping the records and making the notings in a log book.
5th December: Went to New College to collect my vermiculture report. 6th December: Did feeding of baby spiders first. Then caught flies. A female spider's eggs had just hatched so Selvan and I did the separation of the babies into individual containers. 7th December: Did writing of my report first today. Then I gave it to Madam to correct. After she finished with it, I started writing it in fair.
Madam then showed us her spider collection. She also introduced me to Selvan. Before we left she gave me some books to take home to read. 27th November: Watched how Selvan separated baby spiders from their mother, placing each baby in a separate container. There were about 110 babies. Then we fed about 200 older spider babies. Selvan showed me how to check their moulting.
During the fortnight that I worked with Dr Vijayalakshmi, I simply slipped into this set-up, reading books about spiders that Dr Vijayalakshmi gave me, then learning to identify different spiders and simultaneously helping Selvan in all the tasks that were needed to maintain the huge spider population housed in the garage.
When the sun arose, which it did gloomily and amidst threatening rain-clouds, we found ourselves in the neighbourhood of a range of mountains which lay on our left, and which, Antonio informed me, were called the Sierra of San Selvan; our route, however, lay over wide plains, scantily clothed with brushwood, with here and there a melancholy village, with its old and dilapidated church.
Other than the spider work I tried to learn Tamil from Selvan but he was keen to learn English from me and so both of us failed in learning a new language and ended up speaking a cocktail of TamEnglish instead. Extracts from Diary: Spiders 26th November: Uncle Mano and I left for Dr Vijayalakshmi's office this morning at 7 a.m. While Uncle Mano and Madam chatted, I read some books.
Word Of The Day