The Structure and Habits of Spiders. 63 



She stops occasionally at the centre, turns 

 around, and pulls at the threads one after 

 another, and spins here and there short cross- 

 lines to hold them more firmly. She seems, 

 by thus feeling the rays, to decide where to 

 put in the next one, and does it always in 

 such a way as to keep tight what has been 

 done before. When the rays are finished to 

 her satisfaction, the spider begins at the cen- 

 tre to spin a spiral line across them, Fig. 28, 

 a, a, a; the turns of the spiral being as far 

 apart as the spider can conveniently reach. She 

 climbs across from one ray to the next, hold- 

 ing her thread carefully off with one of the 

 hind-feet, till she gets to the right point, and 

 then turns up her abdomen, and touches the 

 ray with her spinnerets, thus fastening the 

 cross-thread to it. The figure shows her in 

 this position. When this spiral has been car- 

 ried to the outside of the web, the spider begins 

 there another and closer one, Fig. 28, of thread 

 of a different kind. While the first thread 

 was smooth, the latter is covered with a sticky 

 liquid, which soon collects on it in drops, and 

 makes it adhere to any thing that touches it. 



