The Life of the Spider 



heels by a thread. The final sacrifice will take 

 place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary. 



A few days later, I renew my experiment 

 under the same conditions, but, this time, I 

 first cut the signalling-thread. In vain I select 

 a large Dragon-fly, a very restless prisoner; 

 in vain I exert my patience : the Spider does 

 not come down all day. Her telegraph being 

 broken, she receives no notice of what is hap- 

 pening nine feet below. The entangled morsel 

 remains where it lies, not despised, but un- 

 known. At nightfall, the Epeira leaves her 

 cabin, passes over the ruins of her web, finds 

 the Dragon-fly and eats her on the spot, after 

 which the net is renewed. 



One of the Epeirae whom I have had the 

 opportunity of examining simplifies the 

 system, while retaining the essential mechan- 

 ism of a transmission-thread. This is the 

 Crater Epeira (Epeira crater a, WALCK.), a 

 species seen in spring, at which time she 

 indulges especially in the chase of the 

 Domestic Bee, upon the flowering rosemaries. 

 At the leafy end of a branch, she builds a sort 

 of silken shell, the shape and size of an acorn- 

 cup. This is where she sits, with her paunch 

 contained in the round cavity and her fore- 



