THE SPIDER 75 



must divide her circle into just so many equal parts 

 without anything to guide her but her sense of space; 

 while you have your hands and your eyes, and a 

 picture of the web to look at and to copy. 



Has not God given the little spider a wonderful 

 gift that she is able to spin such a perfect web? 

 Would you like to know how she goes about to 

 make it? 



About nightfall, the spider comes to the end of a 

 twig, and, after sitting there awhile as if to see that 

 nothing would interfere with her web, she sud- 

 denly drops down with her eight legs wide spread. 

 By the light of a lantern you could just see the fine 

 silvery rope she spins as she drops. When she has 

 almost reached the ground, she turns and cHmbs 

 up the rope, vspinning and twisting as she climbs, 

 to make it thicker and stronger. Then she sits 

 once more upon the end of the twig and waits until 

 the wind shall blow the filmy rope aside and make 

 it catch upon some other twig. Patiently the 

 spider waits; she can do nothing unless the wind 

 helps her. Just a little breeze, — and the end is 

 caught, and over the bridge the spider hurries to 

 see if her guy-rope is fastened to a suitable moor- 

 ing. If it is, she runs back and forth upon it several 

 times, strengthening it each time with new silk 

 which she spins from her spinnerets. When she is 

 satisfied that the guy-rope is strong enough, she 

 attaches other ropes to twigs or branches, and so 

 outlines the space she is to fill. 



But now she must make her spokes or radii to this 

 wonderful wheel she is about to spin. From top to 



