386 Insect Architecture. 



and Bingley has added the original remark, that, after fixing 

 its first thread, creeping along the wall, and joining it as it 

 proceeds, it " darts itself to the opposite side, where the other 

 end is to be fastened !"* Homberg's spider took the more 

 circuitous route of travelling to the opposite wall, carrying 

 in one of the claws the end of the thread previously fixed, 

 lest it should stick in the wrong place. This we believe to 

 be the correct statement, for as the web is always horizontal, 

 it would seldom answer to commit a floating thread to the 

 wind, as is done by other species. Homberg's spider, after 

 stretching as many lines by way of warp as it deemed 

 sufficient between the two walls of the corner which it had 

 chosen, proceeded to cross this in the way our weavers do in 

 adding the woof, with this difference, that the spider's threads 

 were only laid on, and not interlaced.! The domestic 

 spiders, however, in these modern days, must have forgot 

 this mode of weaving, for none of their webs will be found 

 to be thus regularly constructed ! 



The geometric, or net- working spiders (Tendeuses, LATR.), 

 are as well known in most districts as any of the preceding ; 

 almost every bush and tree in the gardens and hedge-rows 

 having one or more of their nets stretched out in a vertical 

 position between adjacent branches. The common garden 

 spider (Epeira diadema), and the long-bodied spider (Tetrag- 

 nafha extensa), are the best known of this order. 



The chief care of a spider of this sort is, to form a cable 

 of sufficient strength to bear the net she means to hang upon 

 it ; and, after throwing out a floating line as above described, 

 when it catches properly she doubles and redoubles it with 

 additional threads. On trying its strength she is not con- 

 tented with the test of pulling it with her legs, but drops 

 herself down several feet from various points of it, as we 

 have often seen, swinging and bobbing with the whole weight 

 of her body. She proceeds in a similar manner with the 

 rest of the framework of her wheel- shaped net ; and it may 

 be remarked that some of the ends of these lines are not 



* Animal Biography, iii. 4701. 



f Mem. de 1'Acad. des Sciences pour 1707, p. 339. 



