404 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



admiration. How would the w orld crowd to see a fox 

 which should spin ropes, weave them into an accu- 

 rately-meshed net, and extend this net between two 

 trees for the purpose of entangling- a flight of birds ? 

 Or should we think we had ever expressed sufficient 

 wonder at seeing a fish which obtained its prey by a 

 similar contrivance ? Yet there would, in reality, be 

 nothing more marvellous in their procedures than in 

 those of spiders, which, indeed, the minuteness of the 

 agent renders more wonderful. 



All spiders do not spin webs. A considerable num- 

 ber adopt other means for catching insects. Of these I 

 shall speak hereafter. At present I shall endeavour to 

 give you a clear idea of the operations of the weavers, 

 explaining successively the instruments by which they 

 spin — the mode of forming their nets, together with the 

 various descriptions of them — and the manner in which 

 they entrap and secure their prey. 



'The thread spun by spiders is in substance similar to 

 the silk of the silk- worm and other caterpillars, but of 

 a much finer quality. As in them, it proceeds from re- 

 servoirs, into which it is secreted in the form of a viscid 

 gum ; but in the mode of its extrication is very dissi- 

 milar, issuing not from the mouth but the hinder part 

 of the abdomen. If you examine a spider, you will 

 perceive in this part four little teat-like protuberances 

 or spinners. These are the machinery through which, 

 by a process more singular than that of rope-spinning, 

 the thread is drawn. Each spinner is furnished with 

 a multitude of tubes, so numerous and so exquisitely 

 fine, that a space oftf^n not much bigger than the pointed 



