The Garden Spiders: My Neighbour 



required to insert a piece into an accidental 



gap. 



Other Spiders are unacquainted with wide- 

 meshed nets and weave satins wherein the 

 threads, crossing at random, form a contin- 

 uous substance. Among this number is the 

 House Spider (Tegenaria domestica, Lin.). 

 In the corners of our rooms, she stretches 

 wide webs fixed by angular extensions. The 

 best-protected nook at one side contains the 

 owner's secret apartment. It is a silk tube, 

 a gallery with a conical opening, whence the 

 Spider, sheltered from the eye, watches 

 events. The rest of the fabric, which exceeds 

 our finest muslins in delicacy, is not, properly 

 speaking, a hunting-implement: It is a plat- 

 form whereon the Spider, attending to the 

 affairs of her estate, goes her rounds, espe- 

 cially at night. The real trap consists of a 

 confusion of lines stretched above the web. 



The snare, constructed according to other 

 rules than in the case of the Epeirae, also 

 works differently. Here are no viscous 

 threads, but plain toils, rendered invisible by 

 their very number. If a Gnat rush into the 

 perfidious entanglement, he is caught at once; 

 and the more he struggles the more firmly is 



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