602 Transactions . — Miscellaneous. 



the webs. At the same time I could not help noticing that, 

 numerous as the webs were, the little bush-birds flew in and 

 out amongst them with unerring accuracy, never injuring one. 

 The quickness and grace of the birds in avoiding the thousands 

 of webs was most interesting to watch. I am particular in re- 

 cording these circumstances and the exact date in order to 

 allow future observers to watch the spiders work at this period 

 of the year. 



The downstream stays to the bridges (and nearly each 

 bridge had two — one to each bank) were slack, and only 

 served to steady the structures. The animals apparently 

 threw these out as a matter of course, whether there was any 

 wind or not. There was little or no wind that morning. We 

 appear to dispense entirely with these shore-stays in our lofty 

 flying bridges. But in the matter of the Victoria Bridge, lately 

 washed away in the Brisbane floods, might not these shore- 

 stays have been of great service ? Of course, I do not for 

 one moment wish to set my opinions against those of our 

 great bridge engineers, seeing that I know very little of bridge- 

 work ; but I have always had great faith in nature's plan of 

 construction. If we ever should use shore-stays like those 

 to which I allude above, then I imagine such stays would 

 have to be constantly inspected and renewed when worn at 

 all. Two great cable-stays upstream might have saved the 

 Victoria Bridge in Brisbane ; but the engineer who con- 

 structed it can best say whether this was practicable or not. 

 I only wish to point out that spiders apparently use such 

 stays. The method of construction appeared to me to be as 

 follows : The animal allowed so much web to float out of its 

 spinnerets, and when it thought sufficient had gone to reach 

 the oj)posite bank it tested the web, and if the web had 

 caught on it took in the slack, and then attached the top-, 

 bottom-, and side-stays, one by one, strengthening all and 

 tautening all with cross-bars, the finished structure being 

 an excellent suspension bridge. Most of the bridges were 

 placed at an angle across the drain, showing how the web 

 had floated out ; but some were straight across. 



The height of the shrubs forming the shore-pillars was 

 about 1ft. to 18in. Along the edge of each side of the drain, 

 and connecting pillar to pillar, were a multitude of side-webs 

 (which T will call edge- webs), evidently for the purpose of 

 further strengthening and tautening the bridges and pillars, 

 and for quick locomotion. In its own mode of reasoning the 

 little animal appeared to think that it could strengthen the 

 shrub pillar by attaching shore-stays to its extreme tips, and 

 side-stays also. I saw one bridge spring out from an edge- 

 web, and then the edge-web strengthened and secured to the 

 bank by a multitude of cross-bars. Amongst that myriad of 



