The Garden Spiders: The Lime-Snare 



twenty yards of gummy thread. The more 

 skilful Silky Epeira produces thirty. Well, 

 during two months, the Angular Epeira, my 

 neighbour, renewed her snare nearly every 

 evening. During that period, she manufac- 

 tured something like three-quarters of a mile 

 of this tubular thread, rolled into a tight twist 

 and bulging with glue. 



I should like an anatomist endowed with 

 better implements than mine and with less 

 tired eyesight to explain to us the work of the 

 marvellous rope-yard. How is the silky mat- 

 ter moulded into a capillary tube? How is 

 this tube filled with glue and tightly twisted? 

 And how does this same wire-mill also turn 

 out plain threads, wrought first into a frame- 

 work and then into muslin and satin ; next, a 

 russet foam, such as fills the wallet of the 

 Banded Epeira; next, the black stripes 

 stretched in meridian curves on that same 

 wallet ? What a number of products to come 

 from that curious factory, a Spider's belly! I 

 behold the results, but fail to understand the 

 working of the machine. I leave the problem 

 to the masters of the microtome and the 

 scalpel. 



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