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because it proceeds from the same place when being spun. The cross-bars, too, 

 are much more elastic and gummy than the others, because wlien the creature 

 makes the web, he wants firmness for the radii, so that they may bear his weight 

 as he runs along them to seize his prey ; but in the cross-bars he wants them very 

 gummy so that the object captured may be held firmly until he comes, when he 

 will do his best to poison it or weave more web about it. In other words the one 

 set of rays (radii) are strong for weight. The other set, cross-bars, are very 

 glutinous and elastic, so made by the addition of a saline mucus, expressly emitted 

 from them in the making of the web, and which continues moist even for years, 

 although the other threads are dry as soon as exposed to the air. This is a 

 wondrous device, and shows God Almighty's skill in adapting things to their 

 several functions and uses. 



A few more words about these threads in the web. They appear to be one 

 single thread— look at them ever so often, e.xamine them ever so closely even under 

 the microscope— but are they only one? At the extreme end of the body of the 

 spider there are what are called spinnerets. These spinnerets vary in number ; 

 say there are four or six. In each of them there are a number of minute holes, 

 from which the viscid fluid comes which makes the webs. You have this number 

 therefore, say 100, 300, 400, 1,000 and more apertures to make the thread from 

 one single spinneret. But there may be six spinnerets — always six in the (Epeira) 

 garden spider. Hence the apertures, call them 1,000, have to be multiplied by 

 the spinnerets before you can get the number of threads which make the coil, or 

 single thread as we call it. In other words, the spider's web seems to us to bo 

 made of one thread — it is really made of hundreds upon hundreds of threads 

 united together to make the one. This is the cause of the web being so very strong. 

 If it were not for this arrangement it would be very weak, and could by no means 

 support the weight it does. 



Then again there is a difference between the garden spider (Epeira diadema) 

 and the house spider (Tegenaria domestica) in this respect, that there are gum 

 tubes in the former but not in the latter. These gum tubes supply the viscid fluid 

 from the body of the sjjider to the threads, and can be closed at will. Hence we 

 get the cross-bar threads with the gummy globules, but not in the radii or long 

 bars, because the spider wants them in one case, but not in the other. The cellar 

 spider has no gummy globules on the web — its web is very complicated, and has 

 strength enough and viscidity enough to secure the creatures, podurae, &c., which 

 get into it. One of the spiders which frequents the inside of trees has a very 

 singular web, different in some points from those which have been noticed. 

 It is the Ciniflo atrox. The gummy globules are arranged in most uncertain 

 patches, and may be found singly. The effect, however, is the same— that, for 

 the kind of prey it feeds on, the web answers its purpose splendidly. 



In " (Jassell's Family Paper " we find the following account :— " The 

 Spider's Web.— How wonderful is the tenuity of these fairy-like lines, yet strong 

 enough to enable the aerial voyager to run through the air, and catch the prey 

 which ventures within his domain. It is so fine that, in the web of the gossamer 

 spider, the smallest of the tribe, there are twenty tubes, through which are drawn 



