210 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



time from the circumference to near the centre, and 

 formed of web, covered with a viscid secretion to retain 

 prey. Lastly, she constructs her lair to bide and watch 

 for prey, at some distance from the web but connected 

 with it by means of a line of communication or telegraph, 

 the vibrations of which inform her of the struggling of an 

 insect in the net. 1 



According to Thompson, 



The web of the garden spider the ii ost ingenious and per- 

 fect contrivance that can be imagined is usually fixed in a 

 perpendicular or somewhat oblique direction in an opening 

 between the leaves of some plant or shrub ; and as it is obvious 

 that round its whole extent lines will be required to which 

 those ends of radii that are farthest from the centre can be at- 

 tached, the construction of those exterior lines is the spider's 

 first operation. It seems careless about the shape of the area 

 they are to enclose, well aware that it can as readily inscribe a 

 circle in a triangle as a square ; and in this respect it is guided 

 by the distance or proximity of the points to which it can attach 

 them. It spares no pains, however, to strengthen and keep them 

 in a proper degree of tension. With the former view it com- 

 poses each line of five or six or even of more threads glued 

 together ; and with the latter it fixes to them from different 

 points a numerous and intricate apparatus of smaller threads ; 

 and having thus completed the foundation of its snare, it pro- 

 ceeds to fill up the outline. Attaching a thread to one of the 

 main lines, it walks along it, guiding it with one of its hind legs, 

 that it may not touch in any part and be prematurely glued, and 

 crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying its spinners, 

 it firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread, which 

 is to form the centre of its net, it fixes a second, which in like 

 manner it conveys and fastens to another part of the lines in- 

 cluding the area. The work now proceeds rapidly. During 

 the preliminary operations it sometimes rests, as though its plan 

 required meditation ; but no sooner are the marginal lines of 

 the net firmly stretched, and two or three radii spun from its 

 centre, than it continues its labour so quickly and unremittingly 

 that the eye can scarcely follow its progress. The radii, to the 

 number of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a 

 wlit-fl. are speedily finished. It then proceeds to the centre, 

 quickiy turns itself round, pulls each thread with its feet to 

 ascertain its strength, breaking any one that seems defective, and 



' Kirby, vol. ii., p. 298. 



