vi] AGELENA 41 



great hesitation and caution in his advances. If his 

 attentions are unwelcome, or even if they have been 

 accepted, he will be promptly trussed up and eaten 

 unless he beats a hasty retreat. But with Ageleint 

 the conjugal relations are exemplary, and harmony 

 reigns in the home. The question of food is certainly 

 a difficulty, but if insects are let loose in the cage 

 the spider will attend to the catching of them. In 

 some cases raw meat has been found a satisfactory 

 substitute. 



After a brief exploration of the box the captive 

 soon becomes busy, going to and fro across its cage 

 and attaching lines to the sides at some height up 

 from the floor. So fine is the work that for a long 

 time hardly anything is visible, and the movements 

 of the animal are the only clue to what is taking 

 place. By and by it becomes evident that a sort of 

 skeleton platform has been spun across the box, 

 upon Avhich the spider is able to walk. It is 

 continually strengthened by new threads, and braced 

 by stay -lines above and below. It has been hardly 

 possible to follow the operations by which this has 

 come about, and even now we are chiefly aware of 

 the existence of the platform because we see the 

 spider walking upon it ; its movements seemed very 

 scrambling and unmethodical, but they have resulted 

 in the foundation of the sheet-web and its terminal 

 tube. But now it begins to behave quite differently* 



