This spider was missing for a week or two, but still in the same part of the madeira vine. I was delighted to find it had shed its exoskeleton just a couple of days back; she is back on deck, to fatten up for mating and laying eggs. I see far fewer spiders these days. It is another class of invertebrates that appear to me to be in far lesser numbers than years past, although this is a subjective observation of mine. What’s going on in addition to pesticide usage? I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ in the late ‘60’s, while still a boy, and she foretold what we have an ominous taste of these days.