410 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



seeui unable to avoid directing their liight. The certain 

 consequence is, that in striking against these ropes they 

 become slightly entangled, and, in their endeavours to 

 disengage themselves, rarely escape being precipitated 

 into the net spread underneath for their reception, 

 where their doom is inevitable. 



But the net is still incomplete. It is necessary that 

 our hunter should conceal her grim visage from the 

 game for which she lies in wait. She does not there- 

 fore station herself upon the surface of her net, but in 

 a small silken apartn)ent constructed below it, and 

 completely hidden from view. " In this corner," to 

 use the quaint translation of Pliny by Philemon Hol- 

 land, Doctor in Physic*, " with what subtiitie doth 

 she retire making semblance as though she meant no- 

 thing less than that she doth, and as if she went about 

 some other business ! nay, how close lieth she, that it 

 is impossible to sec whether any one be w ithin or no ! " 

 But thus removed to a distance from her net and en- 

 tirely out of sight of it, how is she to know when her 

 prey is entrapped? For this difficulty our ingenious 

 weaver has provided. She has taken care to spin se- 

 veral threads from the edge of the net to that of her 

 hole, which at once inform her by their vibrations of 

 the capture of a fly, and serve as a bridge on which in 

 an instant she can run to secure it. 



You will readily conceive that the geometrical spi- 

 ders, in forming their concentric circled nets, follow 

 a process very different from that just described, than 

 which indeed it is in many respects more curious. As 

 the net is usually fixed in a perpendicular or somewhat 

 " L. si. c. ^^4, 



