CONSTRUCTION OF AN ORB WEB. 



65 



lines were about nine feet long, and were stretched over the water at 

 heights varying from one to ten feet. Most of them passed from wall to 

 wall; many were fastened at one end upon piles and sticks driven here and 

 there between the houses. (See Fig. 61.) It was a curious association, not 

 to say analogy, which started in the observer's mind, as he saw the pic- 

 turesque methods of the ancient " Lake dwellers " thus used by modern men, 

 and appropriated, with befitting modification, by the orbweaving araneads. 

 Certainly their silken domiciles were well secured above the inlet on their 

 silken frames, and were happily placed for obtaining ample food supplies 



FIG. 62. Spider suspension bridge over a stream. 



of green-head flies and other insects hovering over the water. But when 

 we ask ourselves, how were these snares built? we are constrained to call 

 in the aeronautic habit and the air. It passes belief that these Epeiras 

 carried their lines back and forth upon the rough waters of an inlet of 

 the Atlantic Ocean. One must conclude that the foundations were formed 

 by air currents. 



One must draw the same conclusion concerning those orbs found sus- 

 pended over streams. I have seen these cobweb bridges at various tunes; 

 and they are not unfamiliar objects to wanderers in summer fields, woods, 



