THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 189 



nothing more than the mysterious filaments called by the 

 vulgar threads of the Virgin. 



These flakes, seen falling from the air in fine autumn 

 days, after having been looked upon as a simple chemical 

 product of the atmosphere, condensed by some special 

 agent, have been made out by Latreille to be only the 

 handiwork of different kinds of spiders, and particularly of 

 the garden-spiders, transported to a distance by the agita- 

 tion of the winds. 1 



Other spiders, instead of displaying their productions in 

 the form of carpets, woven as it were of the mist, which 

 overspread our verdant fields, construct compact and solid 

 hangings, with which they line the insides of their dwell- 



95. Garden-Spider (Epeira diitdema). 1, male; 2, female. 



ings. The mason-spider (My gale cmmentaria, Latreille), 

 very appropriately thus named, occupies itself in this way. 

 It is a true sybarite, which incloses itself in its abode, and 

 there reposes upon soft yielding drapery. 



Its habitation consists of a hole, several inches deep, ex- 



1 According to Latreille, these "threads of the Virgin" are principally pro- 

 duced by young spiders belonging to the genera Epiera and Thomisus. Some 

 chemists thought, with M. Raspail, that they were only aerial albumen precipi- 

 tated to the earth in the form of flakes. 



