SPIDERS GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 221 



beneath it. After alluding to this case, Biichner observes 

 {loc. cit.y p. 318), 



But a similar observation was made by Professor E. H. 

 Weber, the famous anatomist and physiologist, and was pub- 

 lished many years ago in Miiller's Journal. A spider had 

 stretched its web between two posts standing opposite each 

 other, and had fastened it to a plant below for the third point. 

 But as the attachment below was often broken by the garden 

 work, by passers-by, and in other ways, the little animal extri- 

 cated itself from the difficulty by spinning its web round a little 

 stone, and fastened this to the lower part of its web, swinging 

 freely, and so to draw the web down by its weight instead of 

 fastening it in this direction by a connecting thread. Carus 

 ('Vergl. Psycho.,' 1866, p. 76) also made a similar observation. 

 But the most interesting observation on this head is related 

 by J. G. Wood (' Glimpses into Petland '), and repeated by 

 Watson (loc. cit.,p. 455). One of my friends, says Wood, was 

 accustomed to grant shelter to a number of garden spiders 

 iinder a large verandah, and to watch their habits. One day a 

 sharp storm broke out, and the wind raged so furiously through 

 the garden that the spiders suffered damage from it, although 

 sheltered by the verandah. The mainyards of one of these webs, 

 as the sailors would call them, were broken, so that the web 

 was blown hither and thither, like a slack sail in a storm. The 

 spider made no fresh threads, but tried to help itself in another 

 way. It let itself down to the ground by a thread, and crawled 

 to a place where lay some splintered pieces of a wooden fence 

 thrown down by the storm. It fastened a thread to one of the 

 bits of wood, turned back with it, and hung it with a strong 

 thread to the lower part of its nest, about five feet from the 

 groxind. The performance was a wonderful one, for the weight 

 of the wood sufficed to keep the nest tolerably firm, while it was 

 yet light enough to yield to the wind, and so prevent further 

 injury. The piece of wood was about two and a half inches 

 long, and as thick as a goose-quill. On the following day a 

 careless servant knocked her head against the wood, and it fell 

 down. But in the course of a few hours the spider had found 

 it and brought it back to its place. When the storm ceased, 

 the spider mended her web, broke the supporting thread in two, 

 and 1st the wood fall to the ground ! 



If so well-observed a fact requires any further confir- 

 mation, I may adduce the following account, which is of 

 the more value as corroborative evidence from the writer 



