A BEAST OF PREY 5 1 



Balancing herself with her eight legs on the edge 

 of an ivy-leaf beside her native corner (as you see 

 her graphically represented in No. 2), she span, to 

 begin with, a few short ends of silk, which she 

 exposed to a passing current of air by tilting her 

 back up in her most persuasive manner. Where 

 the silk came from, and how she managed to 

 spin it, we will inquire hereafter ; for the moment, 

 it must suffice to say that the wind was polite 

 enough to fall in with her wishes, and to waft 

 one of her threads to a secure position. There it 

 gummed itself automatically by its own stickiness. 

 Mr. Knock, who timed her, reports the interval 

 she took in fixing this first thread as thirty-six 

 seconds. The cable itself was drawn out from 

 Rosalind's spinnerets by the force of the wind, as she 

 stood with her head down and her body protruding; 

 in little more than half a minute she was climbing 

 up a line fifteen inches long, which had caught and 

 glued itself on the edge of a jasmine leaf. For the 

 silk is sticky and viscid, like the glue of a mistletoe, 

 when first produced; it only hardens as it dries, 

 so that it can be readily moored in its first state 

 to whatever it touches. You may compare it in 

 this respect to hot sealing-wax, or to the early 

 pulled stage in toffee-making. 



In No. 3, again, we see Rosalind's first snare, 

 constructed neatly, with the usual architectural 

 and geometrical skill of her race, between the 

 twigs of the jasmine bush. In the centre she sits, 

 as is her wont, head downward. The method 

 of making this snare is so interesting and curious, 



