62 INSECT MANUFACTURES. 



noticed as unfitting them to be bred and reared 

 together. On distributing about five thousand 

 spiders in cells, in companies of about fifty or a 

 hundred, it was found that the larger spiders 

 quickly killed and ate the smaller, until there were 

 only one or two occupiers of each cell. The silk 

 of the spider was also found inferior in lustre and 

 strength to that of the silkworm, and had the 

 disadvantage of being incapable of winding off 

 the ball, but must necessarily be carded. 



Indeed, it could require no very great con- 

 sideration to decide, that spiders' silk, when com- 

 pared with that of the silkworm, was vastly 

 inferior for manufacturing purposes, though em- 

 ployed in many useful and highly ingenious ways 

 by the insect itself. A few of these we must not 

 omit to notice. Every one must have seen the 

 common garden spider (Epefra diadema) suspended 

 by its silken rope, or forming its beautiful web ; 

 but every one is not aware that that silken rope 

 is made up of a multiplicity of threads, and that 

 when the spider attaches the rope to any object 

 by pressing her spinneret against it, she spreads 



