CHAPTER X 



THE GARDEN SPIDERS: >IY NEIGHBOUR 



A GE does not modify the Epeira's talent 

 -^ *• in any essential feature. As the young 

 worked, so do the old, the richer by a 

 year's experience. There are no masters nor 

 apprentices in their guild; all know their craft 

 from the moment that the first thread is laid. 

 AYe have learnt something from the novices : 

 let us now look into the matter of their elders 

 and see what additional task the needs of age 

 impose upon them. 



July comes and gives me exactly what I 

 wish for. WTiile the new inhabitants are 

 twisting their ropes on the rosemaries in the 

 enclosure, one evening, by the last gleams of 

 twilight, I discover a splendid Spider, with a 

 mighty belly, just outside my door. This one 

 Is a matron: she dates back to last year; her 

 majestic corpulence, so exceptional at this 

 season, proclaims the fact. I know her 

 for the Angular Epeira {Epeira angulata, 

 Walck. ) , clad in grey and girdled with two 

 dark stripes that meet in a point at the back. 

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