CARNIVOROUS ARACHNIDA AND MYRIAPODA 



129 



completed, the spider goes to the middle of the upper horizontal 

 line, touches it with the spinnerets, so attaching the beginning of 

 a thread to it, and drops perpendicularly on to the line forming 

 the lowest side of the framework, where she fastens the second 

 end of the thread. She then climbs up this till she reaches the 

 middle (which is to be the middle of the web), and here she fixes 

 the beginning of another thread. She now ascends the perpen- 

 dicular thread, drawing out the new one as she goes, till she 

 reaches the upper line, along which she walks to the point at 

 which she sees fit to attach this radius of her web. She now 

 returns to the centre, and repeats the process, each time walking 

 up the last-formed radius as she draws a new one, till the whole 

 area of the web is filled with radiating lines. 



" The next process is to connect the radii by a spiral line, so 

 forming the meshes of the net. The spider places herself in the 





Fig. 399- — A House-Spider {Tegenaria) in its Web; arrangement of eyes shown at a. 



centre of the web, and attaching a thread there, turns round, 

 drawing a line from the spinnerets, which she applies to ray after 

 ray, fastening it with the aid of her hind -legs. She proceeds 

 farther and farther from the centre until a spiral line has been 

 described from thence to the circumference of the web, where 

 she affixes another thread, and, reversing the operation, draws 

 a second spiral line from the circumference to the centre." The 

 Garden Spider and our other native orb-spinners are all of com- 

 paratively small size, but there are some large tropical species 



vol. II. 



41 



