SPIDER WEBS 71 
according to the season in which I opened them; nor was 
there meanwhile war or famine in Tuscany. It is true, 
to be sure, that I sometimes found a little spider in a gall, 
but always in an open one, into which it had probably 
crept for hiding. This I deem at present sufficient an- 
swer to the assertions of Mattiuoli, but I reserve myself 
to speak later on of flies, gnats, and worms found in galls. 
It is a little more difficult to answer those who desire 
to know how spiders succeed in taking the ends of their 
thread from one tree to another, since not having wings, 
they cannot fly. Moufet bears witness that spiders hop 
and throw themselves from one place to the other, and 
there is truth in this as regards any slight jump, for I 
remember that a gentleman of high rank told me that 
While he was traveling a spider spun his thread from one 
side of the coach door to the other, and the carriage 
having stopped, the spider threw himself suddenly on to 
the hat of an approaching horseman. Thus it is possible 
that they jump, and it may be also that wishing to stretch 
the thread from one tree to another, they first attach it 
to a branch, and then let themselves down by the thread 
to the level ground, thence they go by way of the sur- 
face to the foot of another tree, which they climb, drag- 
ging the thread after them and stretching it at a suitable 
height. A friend told me that one day he saw two 
spiders hanging from two trees not far apart, and he 
noticed that they jumped towards each other, and hook- 
ing themselves together, they securely tied their threads, 
and then proceeded to weave a large web. One might 
also suppose that, when a spider makes a web between 
two distant trees, it is by mere chance : that is, the spider, 
dangling from the tree by the thread may be carried by 
the wind to the nearest tree, and the thread not having 
