HARDWICKE'S SCIE NCE-G0S8IP. 



53 



less bird ; linger, and his eagerness to attract your 

 attention will become almost comic. Make a careful 

 search around, and if you are gifted with keen eyes 

 you will soou discover the cause of the poor bird's 

 uneasiness, for in some tuft of coarse rushes just 

 raised .'above ground, lie four or five wee birdies, 

 whose welfare is watched most jealously by " black- 

 cap" and his spouse. 



This habit of luring the spectator away from the 

 neighbourhood of its nest is by no means peculiar 

 to the " Riverside Bunting." I have seen instances 

 of the same iu the Lapwing ( V. cristatus), common 

 Partridge l(P. cinerea), Skylark (A. arvensis), &c. 

 On the 1st of last July, when walking near a 

 hedge in a field, a beautiful male Yellow-hammer 

 (Emberiza citrinella) flew out, and, pitching just in 

 front of me, began to limp, reel, and tumble in the 

 most curious fashion. 'Disregarding the pretty 

 creature's deceptive evolutions, I searched the 

 bushes close by, and soon found its badly-concealed 

 nest, containing four imperfectly-fledged young. 



The nest of the Black-headed Bunting is, as I said 

 before, placed very near the ground, and is composed 

 of coarse grass, bits of reed, stems of plants, and 

 lined with fine roots and hair. The eggs are four or 

 five in number, of a reddish brown, scrawled and 

 streaked in true bunting style with dark purple- 

 brown. 



At the approach of winter the " Riverside Bunt" 

 ing" leaves its watery haunts, and in severe weather 

 is often seen round barns and farm-yards, feeding 

 with corn-buntings, greenfinches, house-sparrows, 

 chaffinches, and other grain-devouring birds. 

 Kingston, Abingdon. 



SPIDERS' WEBS AND SPINNERETS. 



H 



AV1NG read with interest in some recent 

 numbers of Science-Gossip Mr. Underbill's 

 observations on the spinnerets of spiders and their 

 webs, and the subsequent remarks of Mr. Stratham, 

 who quotes a letter from Mr. Blackwall, the great 

 authority on such matters, I wish, as some years ago 

 I paid considerable attention to the life-history and 

 anatomy of these creatures, to add my little contri. 

 bution to the general stock of knowledge on such 

 matters. 



As my attention was principally directed to the 

 Epeira, and as Mr. Blackwall says that he would 

 much like to know what Mr. Underbill has to say 

 relative to their snares, I will commence by stating 

 my views on this subject. To make myself under- 

 stood, 1 must commence at the A, B, C of the 

 matter. The Epeira; have three pairs of spinnerets ; 

 the two larger pair are placed opposite each other, so 

 as to form the bastions, as it were, of a square redoubt, 

 inclosed within which are the other two spinuerets, 

 or third pair. Each of these pairs of spinnerets are 

 provided with a vast number of spinning tubuli, 



which in each pair differ considerably in number, 

 calibre, and arrangement with regard to each other J 

 and in each pair there are from one to four or five 

 tubuli of much greater size than the others. In short, 

 the tubuli of each pair of spinnerets differ consider- 

 ably from those of the others. The two exterior 

 pairs of spinnerets are furnished with precisely 

 similar glands, though their tubuli differ ; whilst the 

 interior and smaller pair are provided with a totally 

 different kind. The question is, How are these spin- 

 nerets used? I have in vain tried to determine this 

 by ocular demonstration, and indeed I fancy it is 

 impossible to do so, though Mr. Underbill states 

 that one kind of thread results from one pair , of 

 spinnerets,and the other kind from another.- My ..ex- 

 planation of the matter is a merely theoretical one. I 



Fig. 26. Web of Spider, covered with viscid globules. 



The Epeira has various things to do— to make its 

 web, consisting of scaffold-lines attached to bushes, 

 and converging afterwards by radial lines toacommon 

 centre, which .are very strong, elastic, and dry ; to 

 form on these the spiral and practically concentric 

 lines of the web, which are furnished throughout 

 with viscid drops, a species of birdlime, to detain 

 the prey, which, when thus caught, is swathed round 

 with lightning-like rapidity, in a mummy-like shroud 

 by a secretion shot out from the spinnerets. 



In old natural-history books it was stated that the 

 Spider, having spun its web, went over it again, and 

 added the viscid drops ; and this was always quoted 

 as a specimen of its perseverance and industry; the 

 late Mr. Richard Beck, however, exploded this 

 fallacy by taking his microscope into his garden, and 

 watching an Epeira making its web, when he saw 

 that the compound line, after its emission, ran of it- 

 self into dots by molecular attraction. So far so 



