Garden Spiders: The Telegraph- Wire 



the Spider does not quit her hut and remains 

 indifferent to the commotion prevailing in the 

 net. Her line, therefore, is something better 

 than a bell-rope that pulls and communicates 

 the impulse given: it is a telephone capable, 

 like our own, of transmitting infinitesimal 

 waves of sound. Clutching her telephone-wire 

 with a toe, the Spider listens with her leg; she 

 perceives the innermost vibrations; she dis- 

 tinguishes between the vibration proceeding 

 from a prisoner and the mere shaking caused 

 by the wind. 



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