396 Insect Architecture. 



careless observer as resting idly, in nine cases out of ten 

 will be found slowly combing her legs with her mandibles, 

 beginning as high as possible on the thigh, and passing down 

 to the claws. The flue which she thus combs off is regularly 

 tossed away. 



With respect to the house-spider (A. domestica), we are 

 told in books, that " she from time to time clears away the 

 dust from her web, and sweeps the whole by giving it a 

 shake with her paw, so nicely proportioning the force of 

 her blow, that she never breaks anything."* That spiders 

 may be seen shaking their webs in this manner, we readily 

 admit ; though it is not, we imagine, to clear them of dust, 

 but to ascertain whether they are sufficiently sound and 

 strong. 



We recently witnessed a more laborious process of clean- 

 ing a web than merely shaking it. On coming down the 

 Maine by the steamboat from Frankfort, in August, 1829, 

 we observed the geometric-net of a conic-spider (Epeira 

 conica, WALCK.) on the framework of the deck, and as it 

 was covered with flakes of soot from the smoke of the 

 engine, we were surprised to see a spider at work on it ; 

 for, in order to be useful, this sort of net must be clean. 

 Upon observing it a little closely, however, we perceived 

 that she was not constructing a net, but dressing up an old 

 one ; though not, we must think, to save trouble, so much 

 as an expenditure of material. Some of the lines she 

 dexterously stripped of the flakes of soot adhering to them ; 

 but in the greater number, finding that she could not get them 

 sufficiently clean, she broke them quite off, bundled them up, 

 and tossed them over. We counted five of these packets of 

 rubbish which she thus threw away, though there must have 

 been many more, as it was some time before we discovered 

 the manoeuvre, the packets being so small as not to be readily 

 perceived, except when placed between the eye and the light. 

 When she had cleared off all the sooty lines, she began to 

 replace them in the usual way ; but the arrival of the boat at 

 Mentz put an end to our observations. (J. R.) Bloomfield, 

 * Spectacle de la Nature, i. p. 61. 



