The Life of the Spider 



involves great expenditure of time, with no 

 certainty of success. And so, when once the 

 suspension-cable is in being, well and solidly 

 placed, the Epeira does not change it, except 

 on critical occasions. Every evening, she 

 passes and repasses over it, strengthening it 

 with fresh threads. 



When the Epeira cannot manage a fall of 

 sufficient depth to give her the double line 

 with its loop to be fixed at a distance, she em- 

 ploys another method. She lets herself down 

 and then climbs up again, as we have already 

 seen ; but, this time, the thread ends suddenly 

 in a filmy hair-pencil, a tuft, whose parts 

 remain disjoined, just as they come from the 

 spinneret's rose. Then this sort of bushy 

 fox's brush is cut short, as though with a pair 

 of scissors, and the whole thread, when un- 

 furled, doubles its length, which is now 

 enough for the purpose. It is fastened by 

 the end joined to the Spider; the other floats 

 in the air, with its spreading tuft, which easily 

 tangles in the bushes. Even so must the 

 Banded Epeira go to work when she throws 

 her daring suspension-bridge across a stream. 



Once the cable is laid, in this way or in 

 that, the Spider is in possession of a base that 



254 



