My Neighbour 223 



except the cable from which the new network 

 is to hang. 



The laying of this cable is a somewhat difficult 

 matter, because the success of the enterprise 

 does not depend upon the animal's industry 

 alone. It has to wait until a breeze carries 

 the line to the pier-head in the bushes. Some- 

 times, a calm prevails ; sometimes, the thread 

 catches at an unsuitable point. This involves 

 great expenditure of time, with no certainty of 

 success. And so, when once the suspension-cable 

 is in being, well and solidly placed, the Epeira 

 does not change it, except on critical occasions. 

 Every evening, she passes and repasses over 

 it, strengthening it with fresh threads. 



When the Epeira cannot manage a fall of 

 sufficient depth to give her the double line with 

 its loop to be fixed at a distance, she employs 

 another method. She lets herself down and 

 then climbs up again, as we have already seen ; 

 but, this time, the thread ends suddenly in a 

 filmy hair-pencil, a tuft, whose parts remain 

 disjoined, just as they come from the spinneret's 

 rose. Then this sort of bushy fox's brush is 

 cut short, as though with a pair of scissors, 



