EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS. 113 



rush to look at it as a nine-days' wonder. But since it's 

 only the trap of the common English garden spider, why, 

 we all pass it by without deigning even to glance at it. 



At night my eight-legged friends slept always in their 

 own homes or nests under shelter of the rose-leaves. 

 But during the day they alternated between the nest 

 and the centre of the web, which last seemed to serve 

 them as a convenient station where they waited for their 

 prey, standing head downward with legs wide spread on 

 the rays, on the look-out for incidents. Whether at the 

 centre or in the nest, however, they kept their feet 

 constantly on the watch for any disturbance on the 

 webs; and the instant any unhappy little fly got 

 entangled in their meshes, the ever- watchful spider was 

 out like a flash of lightning, and down at once in full 

 force upon that incautious intruder. I was convinced 

 after many observations that it is by touch alone the 

 spider recognizes the presence of prey in its web, and 

 that it hardly derives any indications worth speaking of 

 from its numerous little eyes, at least as regards the 

 arrival of booty. If a very big insect has got into the 

 web, then a relatively large volume of disturbance is 

 propagated along the telegraphic wire that runs from the 

 snare to the house, or from the circumference to the 

 centre; if a small one, then a slight disturbance; and 

 the spider rushes out accordingly, either with an air of 

 caution or of ferocious triumph. 



Supposing the booty in hand was a tiny fly, then Lucy 

 or Eliza would jump upon it at once with that strange 

 access of apparently personal animosity with seems in some 

 mysterious way a characteristic of all hunting carnivorous 



i 



