90 SPIDER GOSSIP. 



doubts about their producing the viscid tiuid, because a garden 

 spider is the only spider that makes viscid globules, and the glands 

 are present in all spiders that I have examined. But they are 

 rather larger than usual in the garden spider, and I see no other 

 apparatus for secreting the viscid fluid, besides these large glands. 



-J 1 i li I I— 



Lengthwise section of gland of Epeira diadema, which serves the third 

 l^air of spinners, showing the inner bag which contains the silk 

 in a fluid state, and its coating of cells which secrete the silk. 

 Magnified 110 diameters. 



Let us now accompany a garden spider throughout the whole 

 process of making a web. It begins by " dabbing " its spinnerets 

 on a leaf or twig and emitting a thread from the ?ij>/>^r pair, 

 spreading out for a moment the discharge-tubes, as one might 

 spread the fingers of one's hand, or better, as a hedgehog erects 

 its spines. The result is seen in Fig. ii. The threadlets, instead 

 of coalescing into one solid thread, fall separately on the surface 

 of the object, and, adhering immediately, get a broad, and 

 therefore firm^ hold. Fig. ii is drawn from a "fastening" made 

 by a spider on a piece of glass. It might be thought proof 

 that a spider's thread is made up of fibres, like a piece of string. 

 I think not ; if it were so, the fibres could be distinguished with 

 a lens of sufficiently high power, but an ordinary thread looks like 

 a glass rod, when magnified a thousand diameters. Thick as the 

 thread is compared with a threadlet, fifteen of the thickest in a 

 spider's web can lie side by side in the space of one-thousandth 

 of an inch. 



Having made a fastening for a start, the spider walks away 

 over leaves and twigs, trailing its thread behind until it gets far 

 enough off, as it thinks — say about a foot in a direct line from the 

 spot whence it started. Here it fastens the thread in a similar 



