SPIDERS. 321 



efficient instrument in their mandibles or jaws, whicli, like 

 their claws, are furnished with teeth ; and a spider which 

 appears to a careless observer as resting idly, in nine cases 

 out of ten will be found slowly combing her legs with her 

 mandibles, beginning as high as possible on the thigh, and 

 passing down to the claws. The flue which she thus combs 

 off is regularly tossed away. 



With respect to the house-spider (.4. do7nestica'), we are told 

 in books, that " she from time to time clears away the 

 dust from her web, and sweeps the whole by giving it a 

 shake with her paw, so nicely proportioning the force of 

 her blow, that she never breaks anything."* That spiders 

 may be seen shaking their webs in this manner, we readily 

 admit ; though it is not, we imagine, to clear them of dust, 

 but to ascertain whether they are sufficiently sound and 

 strong. 



We recently witnessed a more laborious process of clean- 

 ing a web than merely shaking it. On coming down the 

 Maine by the steam-boat from Frankfort, in August 1829, 

 we observed the geometric-net of a conic-spider (^Epeira 

 conica, Walck.) on the framework of the deck, and as it 

 was covered with flakes of soot from the smoke of the 

 engine, we were surprised to see a spider at work on it ; 

 for, in order to be useful, this sort of net must be clean. 

 Upon observing it a little closely, however, we perceived 

 that she was not constructing a net, but dressing up an old 

 one ; though not, we must think, to save trouble, so inuch 

 as an expenditure of material. Some of the lines she 

 dexterously stripped of the flakes of soot adhering to them ; 

 but in the greater number, finding that she could not get 

 them sufficiently clean, she broke them quite off", bundled 

 them up, and tossed them over. We counted five of these 

 packets of rubbish which she thus threw away, though 

 there must have been many more, as it was some time 

 before we discovered the manoeuvre, the packets being so 

 small as not to be readily perceived, except when placed 

 between the eye and the light. When she had cleared off 



* Spectacle de la Nature, i. p. 61. 



Y 



