9 8 ANIMAL LIFE 



down the web. A butterfly is similarly treated ; but a 

 wasp is sometimes allowed to escape with the utmost 

 celerity by biting through the lines that bind it. 



The variety of webs is great. There is the funnel- 

 shaped web, so common under stones and among 

 old walls, from which at the least touch out rushes 

 the artificer. This funnel plays upon the weakness 

 which so many insects have for investigating dark 

 corners and for seeing where tracks lead to. Other 

 spiders choose stations over water where gnats and 

 midges abound. The surface of meadows and heaths 

 are covered by flat webs, which in the frost of an early 

 autumn morning form an almost continuous gauzy 

 covering (fig. 21). 



REFERENCES 



The relation of insects to flowers : Lubbock, ' Nature Series.' 

 Macmillan. 



Spiders : McCook, ' American Spiders,' Philadelphia ; 

 Romanes, ' Animal Intelligence,' Inter. Sci. Series, vol. xli. : 

 Cambridge Natural History. Macmillan. 



