The Garden Spiders: Building the Web 



Moreover, the beginners have one very 

 precious advantage for the observer: they 

 work by day, work even in the sun, whereas the 

 old ones weave only at night, at unseasonable 

 hours. The first show us the secrets of their 

 looms without much difficulty; the others con- 

 ceal them from us. Work starts in July, a 

 couple of hours before sunset. 



The spinstresses of my enclosure then leave 

 their daytime hiding-places, select their posts 

 and begin to spin, one here, another there. 

 There are many of them; we can choose 

 where we please. Let us stop in front of this 

 one, whom we surprise in the act of laying 

 the foundations of the structure. Without 

 any appreciable order, she runs about the 

 rosemary-hedge, from the tip of one branch 

 to another, within the limits of some eighteen 

 inches. Gradually, she puts a thread in posi- 

 tion, drawing it from her wire-mill with the 

 combs attached to her hind-legs. This pre- 

 paratory work presents no appearance of a 

 concerted plan. The Spider comes and goes 

 impetuously, as though at random; she goes 

 up, comes down, goes up again, dives down 

 again and each time strengthens the points of 

 contact with intricate moorings distributed 

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