194 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



" Yes, the snare of an orb-weaving spider. Tliat is 

 the suspension bridge wliich attracted my attention tliis 

 morning, and I certainly ihXuk it a very pretty and in- 

 genious one. A little further down the stream where 

 the bank rises higlier and is crowned on either side with 

 sumach and blackberry vines, another orb-weaver had 

 stretched lier cables, and when I first noticed her was 

 running along one line toward the center. She hung, 

 head downward, and moved one leg after another in a 

 hand-ovec-hand sort of way. When she reached the 

 middle point of the line, she began spinning a round 

 web like this which I have drawn." 



"■ IIow did she git those lines across the run ?" asked 

 Hugh ; " that puzzles me. She didn't SAvim across 

 with it, 1 reckon ? Though I have seed spiders swim- 

 min' or runnin' on the water." 



"Not this kind, Hugh. Our spider laid the main 

 cables of her bridge in a quite different way. The fact 

 is she proceeded much in the manner of Charles EUet, 

 the engineer who built the first susijcnsion In-idge over 

 Niagara river in 1840. The first difficulty to be over- 

 come was to get a string across the chasm, A reward 

 of five dollars was offered for the first string landed on 

 the opposite shore and this brought a host of kite-tlyers 

 to the scene. The kites fluttered like a flock of birds 

 across the whirling flood and soon entangled on the bank 

 beyond. The first string thus stretched, a wire was 

 next drawn across, and heavier wix-es in succession fol- 

 lowed until the. great foundation tfables were laid at 

 length, and thence the weaving of the substantial wire 



