SPIDERS WEB-BUILDIN3. 207 



the web, then, instead of reaching out towards the fork, the 

 spider instantly drops at the end of a thread, of course. If 

 under these conditions the fork is made to touch any part of the 

 web, the spider is aware of the fact, and climbs the thread and 

 reaches the fork with marvellous rapidity. The spider never 

 leaves the centre of the web without a thread along which to 

 travel back. If after enticing a spider out we cut this thread 

 with a pair of scissors, the spider seems to be unable to get back 

 without doing considerable damage to the web, generally gum- 

 ming together the sticky parallel threads in groups of three and 

 four. 



By means of a tuning-fork a spider may be made to eat 

 what it would otherwise avoid. I took a fly that had been 

 drowned in paraffin and put it into a spider's web, and then at- 

 tracted the spider by touching the fly with a fork. When the 

 spider had come to the conclusion that it was not suitable food, 

 and was leaving it, I touched the fly again. This had the same 

 effect as before, and as often as the spider began to leave the fly 

 I again touched it, and by this means compelled the spider to 

 eat a large portion of the fly. 



The few house-spiders that I have found do not seem to 

 appreciate the tuning-fork, but retreat into their hiding-places 

 as when frightened ; yet the supposed fondness of spiders for 

 music must surely have some connection with these observations ; 

 and when they come out to listen, is it not that they cannot tell 

 which way to proceed ? 



The few observations that I have made are necessarily im- 

 perfect, but I send them, as they afford a method which might 

 lead a naturalist to notice habits otherwise difficult to observe, 

 and so to arrive at conclusions which I in my ignorance of 

 natural history must leave to others. 1 



General Habits. 



Coming now to general habits, our attention is claimed 

 by the only general habit that is -of interest namely, that 

 of web-building. The instinct of constructing nets for 

 the capture of prey occurs in no other class of animals, 

 while in spiders it not only attains to an extraordinary 

 degree of perfection (so that, in the opinion of some 

 geometers, the instinct is not less wonderful in this re- 

 spect than is that displayed by the hive-bee in the COD- 



1 Nature, xxiii., pp. 149-50. 



