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Friday, December 14, 2007 - Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL

Cove at Foscue Creek Park, Dec 15, 2007
Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL, December 15, 2007

7:30 am: Good morning from site 42 at Foscue Creek Park.

Since there was nobody camping at any of the sites right on the river I walked out and sat on the bank of the river. And to my good fortune a barge soon appeared 'round the bend up near Demopolis, headed downstream with a load of coal. I'll post a picture soon.

Night camp

Site 42 - Foscue Creek Campground, Demopolis AL

Five Trillion Spiders

Spiders begin their hunting with a few handicaps. They're often smaller and weaker than their prey, and they have no wings to give chase in the air. Some species extend their legs by hydraulic pressure, using the same liquid that carries oxygen from their lungs, so they have a hard time running and breathing at the same time. Even their poison may be no match for their victim's: a crab spider's bite is to a honeybee's sting as "an air-gun compared with an elephant rifle," John Crompton wrote. Yet spiders kill at an astonishing pace. One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about a tenth of a gram of meat a day. Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.

From Spider Woman by Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker magazine, March 5, 2007, page 69

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