TAILORING ANIMALS 



one side of the site chosen for a snare. Our Epeira has 

 eight hands to work with; indeed, we may say ten, for 

 the palps, one on each side of the face, are serviceable 

 in grasping, turning, and holding. Thus she seems to 

 have the advantage over a human seamstress, who has 

 only four hands, although the upper pair have the 

 incomparable endowment of ten fingers, and the lower 

 pair, since the era of sewing-machines, are almost as 

 effective as the upper. However, our spider's hands — 

 or feet, in common parlance — are not without admirable 

 adaptations for her work. She 

 can deftly seize and hold her ma- 

 terial as between thumb and fin- 

 ger. Beginning at the stem, where 

 the stride is easy, she grasps with 

 her claws an under edge of the 

 leaf, and, reaching out her fore 

 feet, draws the two selvages tow- 

 ards each other. Now from the 

 spinnerets, one of nature's most 

 wonderful and beautiful mechan- 

 ical arrangements, is forced a 

 liquid, silken jet. It adheres to 

 the leaf, and hardens at once into 

 a tiny white disk, which serves the 

 use of the "knot" upon a lady's sewing- thread. Swing- 

 ing the abdomen around, Epeira reverses her position, 

 grasps the leaf's opposite side with her hind feet, and 

 fastens her thread thereon. Thus the first " basting "- 

 line is made, and the slightly curved form of the leaf is 

 fixed. Back and forth, with alternate movements of 

 hands and spinnerets towards the free end of the leaf, 

 the industrious creature goes, crossing and recrossing, 



201 



LEAF-WOVEN TENT OF A 

 SPIDER {epeira TRIFOLWh) 



