SPIDERS. 297 



the smallest thread, which still adhering by the other end 

 to the top of the stick, floated in the air, and was so light 

 as to be carried about by the slightest breath. On approach- 

 ing a pencil to the loose end of this line, it did not adhere 

 from mere contact. I, therefore, twisted it once or twice 

 round the pencil, and then drew it tight. The spider, 

 which had previously climbed to the top of the stick, 

 immediately pulled at it with one of its feet, and finding it 

 sufficiently tense, crept along it, strengthening it as it pro- 

 ceeded by another thread, and thus reached the pencil." 



We have repeatedly witnessed this occurrence, both in 

 the fields and when spiders were placed for experiment, as 

 Kirby has described ; but we very much doubt that the 

 thread broken is ever intended as a bridge cable, or that it 

 would have been so used in that instance, had it not been 

 artificially fixed and accidentally found again by the spider. 

 According to our observations, a spider never abandons, 

 for an instant, the thread .which she despatches in quest of 

 an attachment, but uniformly keeps trying it with her feet, 

 in order to ascertain its success. We are, therefore, per- 

 suaded, that when a thread is broken in the manner above 

 described, it is because it has been spun too weak, and 

 spiders may often be seen breaking such threads in the pro- 

 cess of netting their webs. (J. E.) 



The plan, besides, as explained by these distinguished 

 writers, would more frequently prove abortive than suc- 

 cessful, from the cut thread not being sufficiently long. 

 They admit, indeed, that spiders' lines are often found " a 

 yard or two long, fastened to twigs of grass not a foot in 

 height. .... Here, therefore, some other process 

 must have been used."* 



2. Our celebrated English naturalist, Dr. Lister, whose 

 treatise upon our native spiders has been the basis of every 

 subsequent work on the subject, maintains that "some 

 spiders shoot out their threads in the same manner that 

 porcupines do their quills ;t that whereas the quills of the 



* Kirl3y and Spence, vol. i. Intr. p. 416. 



t Porcupines do not shoot oiit their quills, as was once generally 

 believed. 



