SPIDERS. 341 



floated in the air, and was so light as to be carried 

 about by the shghest breath. On ajDproaching a 

 pencil to the loose end of this line, it did not adhere 

 from mere contact. 1, therefore, twisted it once or 

 twice round the pencil, and then drew it tight. The 

 spider, which had previously climbed to the top of 

 the stick, immediately pulled at it with one of its feet, 

 and finding it sufficiently tense, crept along it, 

 strengthening it as it proceeded by another thread, 

 and thus reached the pencil." 



We have repeatedly witnessed this ocurrence, 

 both in the fields, and when spiders were placed for 

 experiment, as Kirby has described; but we very 

 much doubt that the thread broken is ever intended 

 as a bridge cable, or that it would have been so used 

 in that instance, had it not been artificially fixed and 

 accidentally found again by the spider. According 

 to our observations, a spider never abandons, for an 

 instant, the thread which she despatches in quest of 

 an attachment, but uniformly keeps trying it with 

 her feet, in order to ascertain its success. We are, 

 therefore, persuaded, that when a thread is broken in 

 the manner above described, it is because it has been 

 spun too weak, and spiders may often be seen break- 

 ing such threads in the process of netting their webs.* 



The plan, besides, as explained by these agreeable 

 writers, would more frequently prove abortive than 

 successful, from the cut thread not being suf- 

 ficiently long. They admit, indeed, that spiders' 

 lines are often found " a yard or two long, fastened 



to twigs of grass not a foot in height Here, 



therefore, some other process must have been 

 used."t 



2. Our celebrated English naturahst, Dr Lister, 

 whose treatise upon our native spiders has been the 



* J. R. t Kirby and Spence, vol. i. Intr- p 416. 



VOL. IV. 29* 



