From the August 24, 1935, issue
By Science News
DID SPIDERS TEACH MAN THE WEAVING OF NETS?
Greek legend has it that Arachne, the first mortal spinster, learned so perfectly Athene’s art of weaving that she became presumptuous enough to compete against the goddess, and as a punishment was transformed into a spider.
Whatever may be the justification for the old story, it would seem at least as likely that men learned from spiders the weaving of nets to trap birds and other small quarry more directly than women did the art of weaving cloth. While nobody knows when or how nets were actually invented, it is easy to speculate that some Neolithic hunter, idling among the riverside reeds on a day when birds were shy, may have watched a spider spread her net for her own winged prey, and so received the inspiration to try something of the same kind to catch his food with more certainty and less labor.