mSECT ENOINEEEINa. 903 



"And for my part, I am greatly obliged to you, 

 Hugh, for your fact, wliicli is really a valuable contribu- 

 tion to our knowledge, as I also have never seen nor 

 heard of a spider\s bridge-line as long as the one you 

 describe. There are many such facts, by the way, 

 picked up b}' non-scientiflc observers in ordinary life, 

 which would be of greatest value to the naturalist 

 could they be made known. 



"While we are on this sul^ject I may say that 3'oung 

 spiders often manage to string out structures that 

 oddly resemble a bridge in miniature. After emerging 

 from the egg-nest or cocoon, they spend a short season 

 in colony, hanging together in little balls. (See chapter 

 iii.) Soon they begin to move, and as they go they 

 drag after them fine filaments of silk. A hundred 

 spiderlings, more or less, passing from point to point, 

 and back and forth among the bushes by single bridge- 

 lines, and keeping close together, will not be long in 

 la3dng out a series of lines and ribbons that remind one 

 strongly of the roadway, trusses and cables of a bridge. 

 One of the most curious miniatures of this sort which I 

 have known Avas once made in my study. A package 

 of cocoons, spun by an orbweaviug spider, sent me 

 from California, was laid upon my table. One morning 

 upon entering the room, [ found that the spiders had 

 hatched and issued from the perforations in the lid of 

 the package, which was a large cylindrical tin fruit- 

 can. 



" From the summit of this can, as from a bridge-pier, 

 the spiderlings had flung their lines to books and 



