156 THE SPIDER KIND. 



time, cleans away the dust that gathers round it ; which might 

 otherwise clog and incommode it : for this purpose it gives the 

 whole a shake with its paws ; still, however, proportioning the 

 blow so as not to endanger the fabric. It often happens also, 

 that from the main web there are several threads extended at 

 some distance on every side ; these are, in some measure, the 

 outworks of the fortification, which, whenever touched from 

 without, the spider prepares for attack or self-defence. If the 

 insect impinging be a fly, it springs forward with great agility ; 

 if, on the contrary, it be the assault of an enemy stronger than 

 itself, it keeps within its fortress, and never ventures out till the 

 danger be over. Another advantage which the spider reaps 

 from this contrivance of a cell or retreat behind the web is, that 

 it serves for a place where the creature can feast upon its game 

 with all safety, snd conceal the fragments of those carcasses 

 which it has picked, without exposing to public view the least 

 trace of barbarity, that might create a suspicion in any insects 

 that their enemy was near. 



It often happens, however, that the wind, or the rustling of 

 the branches, or the approach of some large animal, destroys 

 in a minute the labours of an age. In this case, the spider is 

 obliged to remain a patient spectator of the universal ruin ; and 

 when the danger is passed away, it sets about repairing the ca- 

 lamity. For this purpose, it is furnished with a large store of 

 the glutinous substance of which the web is made, and with this 

 it either makes a new web, or patches up the old one. In gen- 

 eral, however, the animal is much fonder of mending than mak- 

 ing, as it is furnished originally with but a certain quantity of 

 glutinous matter, which, when exhausted, nothing can renew. 

 The time seldom fails to come when their reservoirs are entirely 

 dried up, and the poor animal is left to all the chances of irre- 

 trievable necessity. An old spider is thus frequently reduced to 

 the greatest extremity ; its web is destroyed, and it wants the 

 materials to make a new one. But as these animals have been 

 long accustomed to a life of shifting, it hunts about to find out 

 the web of another spider, younger and weaker than itself, with 

 whom it ventures a battle. The invader generally succeeds ; 

 the young one is driven out to make a new web, and the old 

 one remains in quiet possession. If, however, the spider is 

 unable to dispossess any other of its web, it then endeavours for 

 a while to subsist upon accidental depredation, but in two or 

 three months it inevitably dies of hunger. 



The garden spider seems to work in a different manner. The 

 method with this insect is, to spin a great quantity of thread, 

 which, floating in the air in various directions, happens, from its 

 glutinous quality, at last to stick to some object near it, a lofty 



