94 SPIDER GOSSIP. 



pider never touches it again, except when it goes on the web to 

 catch a fly. Then the peculiar construction of its feet (see Fig. 13) 

 enables it to hold on without getting entangled, yet the thread 

 sticks so for that the spider is obliged to break nearly everyone it 

 treads on, in order to get away. A few turns of the non-adhesive 

 ring-thread are left round the centre of the web, and here the 

 spider often sits. The centre is connected by a few strong 

 threads with a shelter in some convenient corner, and here there is 

 a " parlour " into which her ladyship can retire into private life. 

 Let a fly but catch in the web, however, and the spider is down at 

 the centre in an instant. It pulls the various radii to feel where 

 the fly is (for it is very short-sighted apparently, and cannot turn 

 its eyes), and rushes out across the web to secure its prey. If by 



r^o"^^ "i 



Foot of Ep'eira diadema, with its claws and toothed hairs. Magni- 

 fied 75 diameters. 



the time the spider reaches the spot, the fly has not got away 

 (flies very often do get away), to see the spider wind it in a silken 

 shroud is a sight marvellous to behold. A few turns with its feet, 

 and the fly is covered all over. This is again the effect of spread 

 discharge-tubes and separate threadlets, and it was by observing 

 his process that I first found out that a spider could send out 

 either one solid thread, or many threadlets, as it chose. Once in 

 its shroud, the fly, like my story, is done. Dragging it up to its 

 den, the spider sucks its blood till nothing but a dry skeleton is 

 left. 



Yet, thinking of the slaughtered fly, I have a few more 

 remarks to make. I do not think that a garden spider's web is so 



