112 EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS. 



were invariably covered by little sparkling drops of some- 

 thing wet and beadlike, which at first in our ignorance 

 we took for dew ; for until I began systematically 

 observing Lucy and Eliza, I will frankly confess I had 

 never paid any particular attention to the spider-kind 

 with the solitary exception of my old winter friends, the 

 trap-door spiders of the Mediterranean shores. But, 

 after a little experience, we soon found out that these 

 pearly drops on the web were not dew at all, but a 

 sticky substance, akin to that of the web, secreted by 

 the animals themselves from their own bodies. We also 

 quickly discovered, coming to the observation as we did 

 with minds unbiassed by previous knowledge, that the 

 viscid liquid in question was of the utmost importance to 

 the spiders in securing their prey, and that unfortunate 

 insects were not merely entangled but likewise gummed 

 down or glued by it, like birds in bird-lime or flies in 

 treacle. So necessary is the sticky stuff, indeed, to the 

 success of the trap, that Lucy and Eliza used to renew 

 the entire set of cross-pieces in the web every morning, 

 and thus ensure from day to day a perfectly fresh supply 

 of viscid fluid ; but, so far as I could see, they only 

 renewed the rays and the foundation-threads under 

 stress of necessity, when the snare had been so greatly 

 injured by large insects struggling in it, or by the wind or 

 the gardener, as to render repairs absolutely unavoidable. 

 The whole structure, when complete, is so beautiful and 

 wonderful a sight, with its geometrical regularity and 

 its beaded drops, that if it were produced by a rare 

 creature from Madagascar or the Cape, in the insect- 

 house at the Zoo, all the world, I'm convinced, would 



