How Animals Work. 



in safety, and receive its death stab from the poisonous 

 jaws of the spider. Should the insect appear too power- 

 ful to be thus overcome, or the spider's larder already 

 stocked to repletion, the spider will release the intruder 

 by biting away the threads which entangle it, so as to 

 save much havoc being wrought with the web by the 

 violent struggles of the captive. The viscid matter on 

 the spiral line dries up after some hours, so the spider 

 has constantly to replace it with a fresh one, even if 

 it has not been destroyed by insects or bad weather. 

 The entire construction of a new web, as we have seen, 

 is a very troublesome business, and so the Garden 

 Spider takes as much care of her web as possible, and 

 spends a great deal of time in patching it up by biting 

 away torn and ragged portions and weaving new lines 

 in their place. 



One of the largest North American orb -weaving 

 spiders, popularly called the Basket Argiope, builds a 

 handsome web, somewhat like the web of our Garden 

 Spider, but with a shield-shaped sheet of silk fastened 

 to the spokes or radii in the centre of the snare, while 

 below the shield there is a broad, zigzag ribbon of silk 

 stretched between two consecutive spokes. The Basket 

 Argiope is said to construct her snare in very much the 

 same fashion as our British Garden Spider, the shield 

 and zigzag bands being formed after the general struc- 

 ture has been completed. In order to make these 

 additions to her snare, the Argiope opens her spin- 

 nerets to their fullest extent, and draws out a regular 

 stream of fine flossy silk, which is first of all woven 

 over the centre of the snare so as to unite the spokes 

 or radii and to strengthen that part of the snare ; then 



134 



