414 I'OOD OF INSECTS. 



culty ill question. I accordingly placed the large gar- 

 den spider upon a stick about a foot long, placed up- 

 right in a vessel containing water. After fastening its 

 thread (as all spiders do before they move) at the top 

 of the stick, it crept down the side until it felt the Avater 

 with its fore feet, which seem to serve as antenna? : it 

 then immediately swung itself from the stick (which 

 was slightly bent) and climbed up by the thread to the 

 top. This it repeated perhaps a score times, sometimes 

 creeping down a different part of the stick, but more 

 frequently down the very side it had so often traversed 

 in vain. Wearied with this sameness in its operations, 

 I left the room for some hours. On my return I was 

 surprised to find my prisoner escaped, and not a little 

 pleased to discover, on further examination, a thread 

 extended from the top of the stick to a cabinet seven 

 or eight inches distant, which thread had doubtless 

 served as its bridge. Eager to witness the process by 

 which the line was constructed, I replaced the spider 

 in its former position. After frequently creeping down 

 and mounting up again as before, at length it let itself 

 drop from the top of the stick, not as before by a single 

 tliread but by two, each distant from the other about 

 the twelfth of an inch, guided as usual by one of its 

 hind feet, and one apparently smaller than the other. 

 When it had suffered itself to descend nearly to the 

 surface of the water, it stopped short, and, by some 

 means which I could not distinctly see, broke off close 

 to the spinners the smallest thread, which still adhering 

 by the other end to the top of tlie stick floated in the 

 air, and was so light as to be carried about by the 

 slightest breath. On approaching a pencil to the loose 



