Woodside. 1 1 



fleecy, filmy webs, floating in the air, collecting on our 

 clothes, and frequently coming against our faces. " Aerial " 

 spiders they are generally called, and they well deserve the 

 name. 



What a charming variety there is in the appearance and 

 habits of our British spiders. One bores a hole deep into a 

 bank, lines the cavity with silk, and spreads its web over 

 the surface of the ground and low plants near ; another 

 builds a kind of diving-bell tube in the water ; a third spins 

 its extensive web from bush to bush, or from tree to tree ; 

 in short, each species has its own peculiar habits, and its 

 own peculiar methods for attracting and capturing its prey. 



We still notice under these trees the fine, gossamer-like 

 webs floating in every direction, too long for us to see to 

 what they are attached or where they end. " Gossamer 

 spiders" is another name given to the aerial spinners of these 

 delicate floating threads, but they are simply the young of 

 many different species, belonging, in fact, to many different 

 families. Large numbers of spiders' eggs hatch in the spring, 

 and Nature at once teaches the young ones to rove, to travel 

 far and wide out of reach of each other, so as not to interfere 

 with one another in their search for food. Thus, acting under 

 the guidance of the Great Mother, we sometimes see, as here, 

 every branch, every twig of a tree, uaaj'be every stem of 

 grass, with its tiny occupant giving out these light, aerial 

 filaments. As they spin, an air current draws what is at 

 first a comparatively short thread farther and farther; and 

 the spider, owing to the thread not catching on anything 

 and so becoming fixed, goes on spinning, in order to keep up 

 the continuity, until an exceedingly long thread is formed. 

 Presently this catches on some obstacle, and away the little 



