232 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



and keep them in a proper degree of tension. With the former view she 

 composes each line of five or six or even more threads glued together ; 

 and with the latter she fixes to them from different points a numerous 

 and intricate apparatus of smaller threads. Having thus completed the 

 foundations of her snare 1 , she proceeds to fill up the outline. Attaching a 

 thread to one of the main lines, she walks along it, guiding it with one of 

 her hind feet that it may not touch in any part and be prematurely glued, 

 and crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying her spinners, she 

 firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread, which is to form 

 the centre of her net, she fixes a second, which in like manner she conveys 

 and fastens to another part of the lines encircling the area. Her work 

 now proceeds rapidly. During the preliminary operations she sometimes 

 rests, as though her plan required meditation. But no sooner are the 

 marginal lines of her net firmly stretched, and two or three radii spun 

 from its centre, than she continues her labour so quickly and unremittingly 

 that the eye can scarcely follow her progress. The radii, to the number of 

 about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a wheel, are speedily 

 finished. She then proceeds to the centre, quickly turns herself round, and 

 pulls each thread with her feet to ascertain its strength, breaking any 

 one that seems defective and replacing it by another. Next, she glues 

 immediately round the centre five or six small concentric circles, distant 

 about half a. line from each other, and then four or five larger ones, each 

 separated by a space of half an inch or more. These last serve as a sort 

 of temporary scaffolding to walk over, and to keep the radii properly 

 stretched while she glues to them the concentric circles that are to remain, 

 which she now proceeds to construct. Placing herself at the circum- 

 ference, and fastening her thread to the end of one of the radii, she walks 

 up that one, towards the centre, to such a distance as to draw the thread 

 from her body of a sufficient length to reach to the next; then stepping 

 across, and conducting the thread with one of her hind feet, she glues it 

 with her spinners to the point in the adjoining radius to which it is to be 

 fixed. This process she repeats until she has filled up nearly the whole 

 space from the circumference to the centre with concentric circles, distant 

 from each other about two lines. She always, however, leaves a vacant 

 interval around the smallest first spun circles that are nearest to the centre, 

 but for what end I am unable to conjecture. Lastly, she runs to the 

 centre and bites away the small cotton-like tuft that united all the radii, 

 which being now held together by the circular threads, have thus probably 

 their elasticity increased; and in the circular opening resulting from this 

 procedure, she takes her station and Vatches for her prey. 3 



was an account of a watchmaker having found one morning a gold ring weighing 

 twelve grains, which he had left on his bench, suspended an inch high to a spider's 

 thread, by which in the course of a week it was elevated eight inches. 



1 I am not certain whether the garden spider does not more frequently form one 

 or two of the principal radii of the net before she spins the exterior lines. 



Mr. Blackwall, in his valuable paper " On the Manner in which the Geometric 

 Spiders construct their Nets," in the Zoological Journal, vol. v. p. 181., has remarked 

 that the above description is not applicable throughout to all geometric spiders, aa 

 some of them do not entirely surround the radii of their nets with concentric circles, 

 but leave one radius free, which serves as a sort of ladder for access to the net ; and 

 as in general they do not bite away the small cotton-like tuft that unites the radii 

 in the centre, nor place themselves" there to watch their prey, but retire under a leaf 



