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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



about to those of tlie birds. The hunting spiders leap and hop, 

 the house spiders generally run forward, other kinds run back- 

 ward and sideways with equal facility, and some, as we have seen, 

 float about in the air. The most marvelous of the spiders' gifts 

 is the silk-spinning. The spinnerets or spinners are little organs 

 at the hind end of the body. Each has a number of very minute 

 holes in it. Out of these the silk flows in a liquid form, but as 



Snare of Long-bodied Garden Spider, Tetragnaiha extensa. 



soon as the air strikes it it hardens into a thread. The strands 

 from the difi;erent holes all unite and form what we know as the 

 spider's thread. There are great differences in the kinds of webs 

 and nests which different spiders make. One of the most inter- 

 esting is the web of the great black-and-gold garden spider. 

 First she spins several lines all joined in the center like the spokes 

 of a wheel, and attached to stems or leaves of plants at the outer 

 edges. When the rays are finished she begins at the middle to 



