LIFE AMONGST THE SPIDERS. Ill 



Among all the uses to which the spider's web has 

 been applied, I know of none more striking in the con- 

 trasts of nature than that seen in the fact that in the 

 " finder " the small tube attached to the best of tele- 

 scopes there are divisions made, a cross appearing in the 

 circle, thus cutting it into four equal parts, so that such 

 a mighty sun as Sirius, that is said to be more than 13 

 billions of miles from us, shall be fixed by the finder for 

 the bigger instrument, that these divisions are obtained 

 from the thin, fine web of the garden spider, that being 

 said to be the finest line that can be formed, and so used 

 by the astronomer for the observation of worlds in the sky, 

 many thousands of times larger than the earth, and at a 

 distance beyond all human comprehension. 



Here is an exact copy by a clever artist of this very 

 object, exactly as it appears to you. Observe, these viscid 

 globes have the thin line running through them; then 

 note, in one or more instances, the thread passes down and 

 through, and then takes a contrary direction, passing up 

 to join another line : it is actually a pulley, and can be so 

 employed when the net has been slackened by weakness. 



A large common garden spider will begin and finish 

 a net of fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter in about 

 three quarters of an hour, which contains 120,000 of these 

 viscid drops.* How are all these thousands of " golden 

 beads " made that is the question ? 



When the lines are first thrown out of the spinnerets, 

 they have been found to be free from them ; after a short 

 time undulations have appeared along the filmy lines, 

 and, subsequently, at the most regular distance, the viscid 

 matter becomes formed into alternating large and small 

 globules by a process of molecular attraction. f 



* P. H. Gosse, quoting Mr. Blackball, 

 f The late Richard Beck. 



