FOOD OF INSECTS. 403 



which should spin ropes, weave them into an accurately- 

 meshed net, and extend this net between two trees for the 

 purpose of entanghng a flight of birds ? Or should we 

 think we had ever expressed sufficient wonder at seeing 

 a fish which obtained its prey by a similar contrivance? 

 Yet there would, in reality, be nothing more marvellous 

 in their procedures than in those of spiders, which, indeed, 

 the minuteness of the agent renders more wonderful. 



All spiders do not spin webs. A considerable num- 

 ber adopt other means for catching insects. Of these I 

 shall speak hereafter. At present I shall endeavour to 

 give you a clear idea of the operations of the weavers, 

 explaining successively the instruments by which they 

 spin — the mode of forming their nets, together with the 

 various descriptions of them — and the manner in which 

 they entrap and secure their prey. 



The thread spun by spiders is in substance similar to 

 the silk of the silk -worm and other caterpillars, but of a 

 much finer quality. As in them, it proceeds from reser- 

 voirs, into which it is secreted in the form of a viscid 

 gum : but in the mode of its extrication is very dissi- 

 milar, issuing not from the mouth but the hinder part of 

 the abdomen. If you examine a spider, you will per- 

 ceive in this part four or six little teat-like protuberances 

 or spinners. These are the machinery through which, 

 by a process more singular than that of rope-spinning, 

 the thread is drawn. Each spinner is furnished with a 

 multitude of tubes, so numerous and so exquisitely fine, 

 that a space often not much bigger than the pointed end 

 of a pin, is furnished, according to Reaumur =*, with a 



=• Reamn, il/em. de P Acad, de Paris, An. 1713. 21 1 .— DeGeer,vii, 1 87. 

 See also Hoole's Lecuwenhoek, i. 41. — t. 2./. 20-22. Leeuwenhoek 



2 D 2 



