THE GARDEN SPIDER 239 



herself drop. The fork is then turned round and round, 

 so that the thread makes a number of separate turns round 

 it. The prongs are next varnished to fix the thread at 

 short lengths. A single thread can now be brought into 

 its destined place, received into grooves cut for it, tightened 

 and secured by a touch of varnish. Sometimes threads 

 unwound from the cocoon of a spider are employed instead 

 of fresh threads. In this case the cocoon is laid upon 

 water till it untwists, then it is laid across the prongs of a 

 fork, and secured as before. 



The best part of this short account of the garden spider 

 comes from Kirby and Spence, and I think that some of 

 my readers, especially those who already know and value 

 the Introduction to Entomology, may be glad to be told 

 who Kirby and Spence were. 



Kirby was a Suffolk clergyman, who before the Intro- 

 duction had made him widely known, had won distinction 

 in the narrow circle of professed zoologists by his history 

 of British Bees (Monographia Apum Angliae), and his 

 investigations of the structure and habits of Stylops and 

 Xenos, very remarkable insects, which are parasitic upon 

 bees and wasps. So peculiar are they that Kirby with 

 general approval made them into a separate order (Strep- 

 siptera), which is still recognised, though it is generally 

 believed that the Strepsiptera are beetles, which have 

 become strangely modified to suit the exigencies of a 

 parasitic life. It was a leading object with the authors 

 of the Introduction to demonstrate the wisdom and 

 beneficence of Providence as displayed in nature, and 

 they were held to have succeeded so well that Kirby was 

 afterwards selected to write one of the Bridgewater 

 Treatises (1835). 



The junior author, Spence, was a Hull drysalter. Before 

 he published on insects he was well known as the writer 

 of some spirited tracts on political and economic subjects, 

 such as his " Britain independent of commerce," which 

 was very widely read. Spence sought to convince people 



