Garden Spiders: The Telegraph-Wire 



scissors, as taut as usual under her legs, she 

 comes to enquire into the state of things. The 

 web is reached, without the least difficulty, by 

 one of the lines of the framework, the first 

 that offers. The Locust is then perceived and 

 forthwith enswathed, after which the signal- 

 ling-thread is remade, taking the place of the 

 one which I have broken. Along this road the 

 Spider goes home, dragging her prey behind 

 her. 



My neighbour, the mighty Angular Epeira, 

 with her telegraph-wire nine feet long, has 

 even better things in store for me. One morn- 

 ing, I find her web, which is now deserted, 

 almost intact, a proof that the night's hunting 

 has not been good. The animal must be 

 hungry. With a piece of game for a bait, I 

 hope to bring her down from her lofty 

 retreat. 



I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a 

 Dragon-fly, who struggles desperately and sets 

 the whole net a-shaking. The other, up 

 above, leaves her lurking-place amid the 

 cypress- foliage, strides swiftly down along 

 her telegraph-wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, 

 trusses her and at once climbs home again by 

 the same road, with her prize dangling at her 



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