Spiders 



spiral which has served its temporary purpose as a 

 scaffold. With the completion of the spiral of sticky 

 threads little more remains to be done. The spider may 

 elect to remain in the hub of its web, there to await its 

 prey, or it may choose to hide at a distance for the same 

 purpose ; in that event a strand of silk is attached to the 

 hub and drawn out to the spider's hiding-place to serve 

 as a telephone line along which the message may pass 

 to the spider that some victim awaits its attention. 



Let us return for a moment to the sticky threads. 

 When examined under a lens, as they leave the spider's 

 spinnerets they may be seen to be somewhat thicker than 

 the other threads and covered with a sticky substance. 

 After they have been stretched, examination will show 

 that they are studded with minute globules of the sticky 

 substance, all of the same size and all equal distances 

 apart. So numerous are these globules that it has been 

 estimated there are more than one hundred and twenty 

 thousand in a large orb. The regular arrangement of 

 these globules long puzzled scientists, but it is now a well- 

 known physical phenomenon that if an elastic band be 

 covered equally all over with a sticky, semi-liquid sub- 

 stance and then stretched, the sticky substance will 

 arrange itself in equal - sized, equally - spaced globules. 

 This accounts for the stretching of its sticky threads 

 by the spider, who is evidently somewhat of a physicist. 



Having studied the making of a spider's orb, let us see 

 how the prey is captured. Now spiders are possessed of 

 poor sight and, in consequence, they rely on their sense 

 of touch for the capture of their victims. No matter 

 whether the spider remains on the hub of its orb or at 

 the end of its telephone wire some distance away, its 

 mode of procedure is the same. Immediately some 

 luckless insect precipitates itself against the sticky 

 spiral its fate is sealed ; struggles are useless, in fact 

 more than useless, for they only cause the unfortunate 

 creature to become more and more entangled on the 



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