104 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



Now for a peep into another part of the invisible world 

 which should not only astonish but delight you. "My 

 Word" says something about a spider's hands.* Just 

 "put on your thinking-cap," as some say when they are 

 about to exercise their brains in a weighty matter, think. 

 The garden spider has to make a geometric web upon 

 which it means to catch flies. It is, perhaps, one of the 

 most curious of all habitations, and vastly different to 

 the bee's, though equally illustrative of design : but how 

 can there be design without a designer ? 



When I made a large diagram for my lecture upon 

 the garden spider, I had to employ the compass with 

 wtrch to draw a circle. How did the spider "acquire" 

 her knowledge of that? Then, secondly, a spider's net 

 surely is not the easiest of all floors to walk over, for, 

 slipping through the absolutely countless divisions, the 

 poor creature would soon come to grief on the earth 

 below, and become food for the birds. Some kind of con- 

 trivance, therefore, must be necessary to prevent this for 

 the foot which has very hurriedly to run over the web in 

 order to secure food. 



Again, the garden spiders, called the geometric spielers, 

 make their lines equidistant. With what tool can they 

 do this ? Where there is contrivance, there must have 

 been a contriver. What has been contrived for the 

 spider's foot, and who contrived it? Has it, after all, 

 been simply acquired ? Never ! Then, again, the web, 

 as we shall very presently see, is a much more compli- 

 cated affair than is generally supposed. It is covered 

 with viscid globes, made by the spider, upon which some 

 smaller insects many far too small for your eyes and mine 

 to see without our microscope are secured. In dusty or 

 windy weather these globes are liable to be damaged, or 

 * Prov. xxx. 28. 



