34 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 



Without an instant's confusion, or hesitation, it commenced 

 rapidly throwing a new web with its hinder legs or spinners, 

 over the two claws that were entangled, so that the hold 

 there might first be strengthened. The cockroach struggled 

 desperately his weight began to tear away the web from 

 the beam. 



The spider felt that all was giving way and faster than 

 the eye could follow him, ran back and forth along the 

 breaking cords, from the beam to the heels of the monster, 

 carrying a new thread from one to the other each time, until 

 the breakage was arrested, and he was satisfied that the whole 

 would bear all its weight and efforts. 



He then returned cautiously to the charge, and, after 

 a dozen trials, succeeded in webbing the second pair of legs, 

 and bound them down in spite of the tremendous writhings 

 of the great black "keast. The third pair were near the head, 

 and he could not succeed in binding them from the front, so 

 he tried another tack ; he crawled along the hard sheath of 

 the back (it hung back downward), and commenced, with in- 

 conceivable rapidity, throwing his web over the head. The 

 roach seemed to be greatly frightened by this, and made 

 -jaore furious efforts than ever to get loose. 



The cords from above began to give way again. The 

 spider darted along them again as before, till they were 

 strengthened a second time. He now tried another manoeu- 

 vre. We had noticed him frequently attempting to bite 

 through the sheath armor of the roach, but he seemed to 

 have failed in piercing it. He now seemed determined to 

 catch the two fore legs that were free. After twenty trials 

 at least, he noosed one of them, and soon had it under his 

 control. This pair of legs was much more delicate than the 

 others ; he instantly bit through the captured one. 



The poison was not sufficient to affect the large mass of 

 the roach a great deal, but the leg seemed to give it much 

 pain, and it bent its head forward to caress the wound with 

 its jaws and now the object of the cunning spider was ap- 



