FOOD OF INSECTS. 267 



pleted the foundations of her snare^, she proceeds to fill up the outUne. 

 Attaching a thread to one of the main lines, she walks along it, guiding it 

 with one of her hind feet that it may not touch in any part and be prema- 

 turely glued, and crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying 

 her spinners, she firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread, 

 which is to form the centre of her net, she fixes a second, which in like 

 manner she conveys and fastens to another part of the lines encircling 

 the area. Her work now proceeds rapidly. During the preliminary 

 operations she sometimes rests, as though her plan required meditation. 

 But no sooner are the marginal lines of her net firmly stretched, and two 

 or three radii spun from its centre, than she continues her labor so quickly 

 and unremittingly that the eye can scarcely follow her progress. The 

 radii, to the number of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a 

 wheel, are speedily finished. She then proceeds to the centre, quickly 

 turns herself round, and pulls each thread with her feet to ascertain its 

 strength, breaking any one that seems defective and replacing it by another. 

 Next, she glues immediately round the centre five or six small concentric 

 circles, distant about half a line from each other, and then four or five 

 larger ones, each separated by a space of half an inch or more. These 

 last serve as a sort of temporary scaffolding to walk over, and to keep the 

 radii properly stretched while she glues to them the concentric circles that 

 are to remain, which she now proceeds to construct. Placing herself at 

 'the circumference, and fastening her thread to the end of one of the radii, 

 she walks up that one, towards the centre, to such a distance as to draw 

 the thread from her body of a sufficient length to reach the next ; then 

 stepping across and conducting the thread with one of her hind feet, she 

 glues it with her spinners to the point in the adjoining radius to which it is 

 to be fixed. This process she repeats until she has filled up nearly the 

 whole space from the circumference to the centre with concentric circles, 

 distant from each other about two lines. She always, however, leaves a 

 vacant interval around the smallest first spun circles that are nearest to 

 the centre, but for what end I am unable to conjecture. Lastly, she runs 

 to the centre and bites away the small cotton-like tuft that united all the 

 radii, which being now held together by the circular threads, have thus 

 probably their elasticity increased ; and in the circular opening resuking 

 from this procedure, she takes her station and watches for her prey.^ 



> I am not certain whether the garden spider does not more frequently form one or two of 

 the principal radii of the net, before she spins the exterior lines. 



2 Mr. Blackwall, in his valuable paper " On the Manner in which the Geometric Spiders 

 construct their Nets," in the Zwloaical Journal^ vol. v. p. 181., has remarked that the 

 above description is not applicable throughout to all geometric spiders, as some of them do 

 not entirely surround the radii of their nets with concentric circles, but leave one radius 

 free, which serves as a sort of ladder for access to the net ; and as in general they do not 

 bite away the small cotton-like luft that unites the radii in the centre, nor place themselves 

 there to watch their prey, but retire under a leaf or other shelter, and there construct a cell 

 in which the spider remains concealed till the vibrations of a strong line of communication, 

 composed of several united threads, which she has spun from the centre of the net to her 

 cell, inform her of the capture of a fly, to which she then rushes along this bridge. This 

 criticism as to the too extensive generalization of the procedures of the garden spider above 

 described is perfectly just, as my own observations since the publication of the last edition 

 of this work, but long before I had seen Mr. Blackwall's paper, had shown me. My ex- 

 cuse must be that the observations above recorded (which are left precisely as originally 

 written about the year 1812), having been made on the spur of the occasion in my garden 

 at Drypool near Hull, when to my surprise I could not find in books any mtelligible ac- 

 count of the way in which the geometric spiders construct their nets, were necessarily con- 



