FOOD OF INSECTS. 235 



spiders have the power of shooting out threads and directing them at 

 pleasure towards a determined point, judging of the distance and position 

 of the object by some sense of which we are ignorant. Something like 

 this manoeuvre I once myself witnessed in a male of the small garden 

 spider (Epeira? reticulata). It was standing midway on a long perpen- 

 dicular fixed thread, and an appearance caught my eye of what seemed to 

 be the emission of threads from its projected spinners. I therefore moved 

 my arm in the direction in which they apparently proceeded, and, as I 

 suspected, a floating thread attached itself to my coat, along which the 

 spider crept. As this was connected with the spinners of the spider, it 

 could not have been formed in the same way with the secondary thread of 

 E. Diadema above described. 



Probably in this case, as in so many others, we bewilder ourselves by 

 attempting to make nature bend to generalities to which she disdains to 

 submit. Different spiders may lay the foundations of their net in a dif- 

 ferent manner; some on the plan adopted by E. Diadema; others, as 

 Lister long ago conjectured 1 , by shooting out threads in the mode of the 

 flying species, as in the instances recorded by the anonymous observer and 

 Mr. Knight. Nor is it improbable that the same species has the power of 

 varying its procedures according to circumstances. 



How far these suppositions are correct it is impossible to determine 

 without further experiments, which it is somewhat strange should not 

 before now have been instituted. Pliny thought it nothing to the credit 

 of the philosophers of his day, that while they were disputing about the 

 number of heroes of the name of Hercules, and the site of the sepulchre of 

 Bacchus, they should not have decided whether the queen bee had a sting 

 or not 2 ; but it seems much more discreditable to the entomologists of 

 ours, that they should yet be ignorant how the geometric spiders fix their 

 nets. One excuse for them is, that these insects generally begin their 

 operations in the night, so that, though it is very easy to see them spin- 

 ning their concentric circles, it is seldom that they can be caught laying 

 the foundations of their snares. Yet doubtless the lucky moment might 

 be hit by an attentive observer, and I shall be glad if my attempt to de- 

 scribe their more ordinary operations should induce you to aim at sig- 

 nalising yourself by the discovery. If you failed in solving every difficulty, 

 you would at least be rewarded by witnessing their industry, ingenuity, 

 and patience. 



For the latter virtue they have no small occasion. Incapable of ac- 

 tively pursuing their prey, they are dependent upon what chance conducts 

 into their toils, which, especially those spread in neglected buildings, often re- 

 main for a long period empty. Even the geometrical spiders, which fix them- 

 selves in the midst of a well-peopled district in the open air, have frequently 

 to sustain a protracted abstinence. A continued storm of wind and rain 

 will demolish their nets, and preclude the possibility of reconstructing them 

 for many days or sometimes weeks, during which not even a single gnat 

 regales their sharp-set appetites. And when at length formed anew or 

 repaired, an unlucky bee or wasp, or an overgrown fly, will perversely 

 entangle itself in toils not intended for insects of its bulk, and in disen- 

 gaging itself once more leave the net in ruin. All these trials move not 

 our philosophic race. They patiently sit in their watching place in the 

 same posture, scarcely even stirring but when the expected prey appears. 



i Hist. Anlm. Aug. p. 7. * Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. xl c. 17. 



