136 WEB OF THE HOUSE-SPIDER. 



We have, as yet, said nothing of the toils of the common 

 House-Spider, but so secretly and slily does that " cunning 

 artificer" ply her craft, that some of the most clever naturalists 

 have been puzzled, and are still at fault, as to the precise 

 manner in which she goes to work. One* has declared that 

 she can " weave the warp, and weave the woof:" but, as ob- 

 served by another, f if she ever possessed, she has, in these 

 modern days, forgot this process in her manufacture. When, 

 in commencing her horizontal fabric, she desires to stretch 

 her first line from wall to wall across her chosen corner, it 

 would appear that she walks round the intervening angle, 

 carrying in one of her claws the end of her thread, which has 

 been previously fixed, a mode of proceeding, supposed by 

 Bennie to be requisite on account of the horizontal position 

 of her net, which could not be ensured by allowing its first 

 line to be fixed at hazard, as with those shot out by the 

 weavers of Gossamer. 



Numerous other Spider-wrought fabrics, as varied in shape 

 and texture as in their process of formation, and intended for 



+ 



snares, for habitations, or for egg-nests, are constructed by the 

 hairy-legged spinners of our native island ; but perhaps we 

 must look for the deacons of their craft amongst those of 

 foreign extraction. None, for instance, of our Arachnean 

 artificers at present known, are able, we believe, to compete 

 with the marvellous skill of the Mason Spider of the tropics 



* Homberg. t Kennie. 



