Introduction

According to a fable written in 1881, a venomous spider cast a web over the insect community that kept alien moths out of the garden paradise. However, it also trapped butterflies, considered important for pollination. The bumblebee lawmakers, strong enough to fly through the web, ignored complaints from the garden’s weaker residents about the harsh methods used by the spider, who bore “on his broad dark back a growth of dirty white down, forming for all the world hieroglyphics which could be clearly interpreted as the letters A and C” (Foote Sr., 1881, p. 3).