loo The Life of the Spider 



lutely faultless, for there are always awkward 

 pieces on the outside, which the worker could 

 not handle, the gaudy building is not devoid of 

 merit. The bird lining its nest would do no 

 better. Whoso sees the curious, many-coloured 

 productions in my pans takes them for an out- 

 come of my industry, contrived with a view 

 to some experimental mischief ; and his sur- 

 prise is great when I confess who the real 

 author is. No one would ever believe the 

 Spider capable of constructing such a monu- 

 ment. 



It goes without saying that, in a state of 

 liberty, on our barren waste-lands, the Lycosa 

 does not indulge in such sumptuous archi- 

 tecture. I have given the reason : she is too 

 great a stay-at-home to go in search of materials 

 and she makes use of the limited resources which 

 she finds around her. Bits of earth, small 

 chips of stone, a few twigs, a few withered 

 grasses : that is all, or nearly all. Wherefore 

 the work is generally quite modest and reduced 

 to a parapet that hardly attracts attention. 



My captives teach us that, when materials 

 are plentiful, especially textile materials that 



