SENSE OF TOUCH. 17 



doubt not that it is from some such feelings that ants, 

 bees, and other insects, are observed to provide for a 

 coming change. 



According to Brez, his friend D'Isjonval observed 

 spiders to have so good a knowledge of the weather 

 that when it was wet and windy they spun only very 

 short lines; "but when a spider spins a long thread 

 there is a certainty of fine weather for at least ten or 

 twelve days afterwards*." "Without going the 

 length," says Kirby, " of deeming this important 

 enough to regulate the march of armies or the sailing 

 of fleets, or of proposing that the first appearance of 

 these barometrical spiders in spring should be an- 

 nounced by the sound of trumpet, I have reason to 

 suppose, from my own observations, that his state- 

 ments are in the main accurate, and that a very good 

 idea of the weather may be formed from attending to 

 these insects t-" 



This theory, as it appears to us, may be supported 

 so far as the winds are concerned at the time the 

 frame-work of the web is constructed, but not far- 

 ther. This framework, being the most difficult part 

 of the structure, is always taken much care of, 

 and strengthened from time to time with additional 

 lines; so that, when not accidentally broken, it 

 may last for many days, and serve for the basis of 

 many successive nets destroyed by entrapped in- 

 sects, or other causes. In such cases, it is not of 

 course varied to suit the varying weather. The 

 longest line of frame-work we remember to have 

 seen, was that of the orange spider {Aranea aiiran- 

 tia, Olivier), which was thrown from the branch of 

 an elm on the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse at Paris, 

 a distance of four or five yards, and fixed to the 

 ground. The spot being sheltered by the adjacent 

 trees, it would appear that the spider could not other- 

 's' Flore des Insectophiles, Notes suppl. p. 134. f Intr. i. 420. 



c 3 



