298 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



latter are entirel}^ separated from their bodies, when thus 

 shot out, the threads of the former remain fixed to their 

 anus, as the sun's rays to its body."* A French periodical 

 writer goes a little farther, and saj^s, that spiders have the 

 power of shooting out threads, and directing them at plea- 

 sure towards a determined point, judging of the distance 

 and position of the object by some sense of which we are 

 ignorant.f Kirby also says, that he once observed a small 

 garden spider (^Ai-anea reticulata) " standing midway on a 

 long perpendicular fixed thread, and an appearance caught " 

 his " eye, of what seemed to be the emission of threads." 

 " I," therefore, he adds, "moved my arm in the direction 

 in which they apparently proceeded, and, as I had suspected, 

 a floating thread attached itself to my coat, along which 

 the spider crept. As this was connected with the spinners 

 of the spider, it could not have been formed " by breaking 

 a " secondary thread."]; Again, in speaking of the gossamer- 

 spider, he says, "it first extends .its thigh, shank, and foot, 

 into a right line, and then, elevating its abdomen till it 

 becomes verti(!al, shoots its thread into the air, and flies off' 

 from its station. "§ 



Another distinguished naturalist, Mr. White of Selborne, 

 in speaking of the gossamer-spider, says, "Every day in 

 fine weather in autumn do I see these spiders shooting out 

 their webs, and mounting aloft : they will go off" from the 

 finger, if you will take them into your hand. Last summer, 

 one alighted on my book as I was reading in the parlour ; 

 and running to the top of the page, and shooting out a web, 

 took its departure from thence. But what I most wondered 

 at was, that it went off with considerable velocity in a place 

 where no air was stirring ; and I am sure I did not assist it 

 with my breath." || 



Having so often witnessed the thread set afloat in the air 

 by spiders, we can readily conceive the way in which those 

 eminent naturalists were led to suppose it to be ejected by 



* Lister, Hist. Animalia Angliae, 4to. p. 7. 

 t Phil. Mag. ii. p. 275. 

 + Vol. i. Iiitr. p. 417. § Ibid. ii. p. 339. 

 II Nat. Hist, of Selborne, vol. i. p. 327. 



