SPIDERS. 357 



sometimes on the ground. The middle of this sheet, 

 which is of a close texture, is swung hke a sailor's 

 hammock, by silken ropes extended all around to the 

 higher branches; but the whole curves upwards and 

 backwards, sloping down to a long funnel-shaped 

 gallery which is nearly horizontal at the entrance, 

 but soon winds obliquely till it becomes quite per- 

 pendicular. This curved gallery is about a quarter 

 of an inch in diameter, is much more closely woven 

 than the sheet part of the web, and sometimes de- 

 scends into a hole in the ground, though oftener 

 into a group of crowded twigs, or a tuft of grass. 

 Here the spider dwells secure, frequently resting 

 with her legs extended from the entrance of the gal- 

 lery, ready to spring out upon whatever insect may 

 fall into her sheet net. She herself can only be 

 caught by getting behind her and forcing her out into 

 the web; but though we have often endeavoured to 

 make her construct a nest under our eye, we have 

 been as unsuccessful as in similar experiments with 

 the common house spider {Jiranea domestica)* 



The house spider's proceedings were long ago de- 

 scribed by Romberg, and the account has been copied, 

 as usual, by almost every subsequent writer. Goldsmith 

 has, indeed, given some strange mis-statements from 

 his own observations, and Bingley has added the 

 original remark, that after fixing its first thread, 

 creeping along the wall and joining it as it proceeds, 

 it " darts itself to the opposite side, where the other 

 end is to be fastened I"! Homberg's spider took 

 the more circuitous route of travelling to the opposite 

 wall, carrying in one of the claws the end of the 

 thread previously fixed, lest it should stick in the 

 wrong place. This we believe to be the correct state- 

 ment, for as the web is always horizontal, it would 



* J. R. t Animal Biography, iii. 170 — 1. 



