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The Life of the Spider 



In bearing and colouring, Epeira fasciata 

 is the handsomest of the Spiders of the 

 South. On her fat belly, a mighty silk-ware- 

 house nearly as large as a hazel-nut, are 

 alternate yellow, black and silver sashes, to 

 which she owes her epithet of Banded. 

 Around that portly abdomen, the eight long 

 legs, with their dark- and pale-brown rings, 

 radiate like spokes. 



Any small prey suits her; and, as long as 

 she can find supports for her web, she settles 

 wherever the Locust hops, wherever the 

 Fly hovers, wherever the Dragon-fly dances 

 or the Butterfly flits. As a rule, because of 

 the greater abundance of game, she spreads 

 her toils across some brooklet, from bank 

 to bank, among the rushes. She also 

 stretches them, but not assiduously, in the 

 thickets of evergreen oak, on the slopes with 

 the scrubby greenswards, dear to the Grass- 

 hoppers. 



Her hunting-weapon is a large upright 

 web, whose outer boundary, which varies ac- 

 cording to the disposition of the ground, is 

 fastened to the neighbouring branches by a 

 number of moorings. The structure is that 

 adopted by the other weaving Spiders. 



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