SILK SPINNING AND HANDIWORK 67 



In other reports of spider-silk landing nets, the spiders are not 

 said to spin their webs upon the hoops, but instead the latter are 

 twisted and turned through a number of large webs until there 

 results a many-layered covering of fiber. When drawn through the 

 water, these nets are stretched to the shape of a shallow bag. In 

 the Trobriand Islands, the frame is only the fork of a shrub on 

 which the web is twisted. Apparently, these homemade landing 

 nets are quite durable objects and can be used over and over again, 

 ordinarily requiring only a limited amount of patching. Their haul 

 is made up of prawn, shrimps, and various kinds of fish sometimes 

 weighing as much as three or four pounds. 



Thus the wiles of the modern angler, with his casting fly, his 

 trolling lines, and his gill nets, are duplicated by natives of a single 

 region, and the important element of all these snares is spider silk. 



