406 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



usually guides, or keeps separated into two or more, the 

 line from behind ; and in many species these are admi- 

 rably adapted for the purpose, two of them being fur- 

 nished underneath with teeth like those of a comb, by 

 means of which the threads are kept asunder. But an- 

 other instrument was wanting. The spider in ascending 

 the line by which she has dropped herself from an emi- 

 nence, winds up the superfluous cord into a ball. In 

 performing this the pectinated claws would not have been 

 suitable. She is therefore furnished with a tJiird claw 

 between the other two^, and is thus provided for every 

 occasion. 



The situations in which spiders place theij' nets are 

 as various as their construction. Some prefer the open 

 air, and suspend them in the midst of shrubs or plants 

 most frequented by flies and other small insects, fixing 

 them in a horizontal, a vertical, or an oblique direction. 

 Others select the corners of windows and of rooms, 

 where prey always abounds ; while many establish them- 

 selves in stables and neglected out-houses, and even in 

 cellars and desolate places in which one would scarcely 

 expect a fly to be caught in a month. It is with the 

 operations of these last especially, that we are accus- 

 tomed to associate the ideas of neglect and desertion by 

 man — associations which both in painting and allegory 

 have been often happily applied. Hogarth, when he 

 wished to produce a speaking picture of neglected cha- 

 rit}', clothed the poor's box in one of his pieces with a 

 spider's web : and the Jews, in one of the fables with 

 which they liave disfigured the records of holy writ, have 

 not less ingeniously availed themselves of the same idea. 



" Leeuw. Opusc. iii. 317. f. 1. 



