32 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



well as in the fact that a spider's body is differently 

 modelled from that of an insect, we see how rigidly 

 the one group is marked off from the other. They 

 are divergent branches of the same tree, no doubt, but 

 their present-day distinctness is easy to be recognised. 

 The spider in the kitchen is evidently a well-to-do 

 member of her race. She is large and comely, and 

 beautifully speckled and marbled with dark brown and 

 yellowish white. Judging from her appearance, I 

 should say she is a belle in arachnidan society, and, 

 if one may deem that personal charms are enhanced 

 by much activity and general liveliness, the spider in 

 question must rank as a very Cleopatra of the tribe. 



That geometrical web has given her a deal of trouble 

 these last few days. I have watched her spin safety- 

 lines innumerable to keep the net from being displaced 

 by the draughts of the kitchen window. It takes her 

 only a minute or two deftly to fix a new cord, and she 

 exemplifies to the full that expression of Pope's about 

 " living along the line." How she spins her web it 

 may be interesting to trace. 



Like the silk-moth's caterpillar, or the mussel in the 

 sea, which are also spinners and weavers, Madame 

 Spider's silk-secretion exists within her body in a fluid 

 state. It is made and secreted by certain silk-forming 

 glands which end in the " spinnerets." These last are 

 conical projections placed near the tail ; and compara- 

 tive anatomy seems to teach us that the spinnerets 

 really represent much-altered limbs. Each of these 

 organs seems in its essential nature to be composed 

 of a multitude of fine tubes, opening at the top of the 

 spinneret. This, then, is the apparatus wherewith our 

 spider weaves. 



Let us see how the weaving is carried on. The 



