The Lime-Snare 251 



Then, too, what a passion for production ! 

 Knowing the diameter of the orb and the 

 number of coils, we can easily calculate the 

 total length of the sticky spiral. We find that, 

 in one sitting, each time that she remakes her 

 web, the Angular Epeira produces some twenty 

 yards of gummy thread. The more skilful Silky 

 Epeira produces thirty. Well, during two 

 months, the Angular Epeira, my neighbour, 

 renewed her snare nearly every evening. During 

 that period, she manufactured something like 

 three-quarters of a mile of this tubular thread, 

 rolled into a tight twist and bulging with glue. 



I should like an anatomist endowed with 

 better implements than mine and with less tired 

 eyesight to explain to us the work of the mar- 

 vellous rope-yard. How is the silky matter 

 moulded into a capillary tube ? How is this 

 tube filled with glue and tightly twisted ? 

 And how does this same wire-mill also turn 

 out plain threads, wrought first into a frame- 

 work and then into muslin and satin ; next, a 

 russet foam, such as fills the wallet of the Banded 

 Epeira ; next, the black stripes stretched in 

 meridian curves on that same wallet ? What a 



