44 The Life of a Spider 



In bearing and colouring, Epeira fasciata is 

 the handsomest of the Spiders of the South. 

 On her fat belly, a mighty silk-warehouse 

 nearly as large as a hazel-nut, are alternate 

 yellow, black and silver sashes, to which she 

 owes her epithet of Banded. Around that 

 portly abdomen, the eight long legs, with their 

 dark- and pale-brown rings, radiate like spokes. 



Any small prey suits her ; and, as long as she 

 can find supports for her web, she settles 

 wherever the Locust hops, wherever the Fly 

 hovers, wherever the Dragon-fly dances or the 

 Butterfly flits. As a rule, because of the greater 

 abundance of game, she spreads her toils 

 across some brooklet, from bank to bank among 

 the rushes. She also stretches them, but not 

 assiduously, in the thickets of evergreen oak, 

 on the slopes with the scrubby greenswards, 

 dear to the Grasshoppers. 



Her hunting-weapon is a large upright web, 

 whose outer boundary, which varies according 

 to the disposition of the ground, is fastened 

 to the neighbouring branches by a number of 

 moorings. The structure is that adopted by 

 the other weaving Spiders. Straight threads 



