Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 183 



roughly shaken, is to drop itself down on the earth, 

 where it lies simulating' death. In falling, it drops 

 just as a green leaf would drop, that is, not quite so 

 rapidly as a round, solid body like a beetle or 

 spider. Now in the bushes there is another Epeira, 

 in size and form like the last, but differing in colour; 

 for instead of a vivid green, it is of a faded yellowish 

 white — the exact hue of a dead, dried-up leaf. This 

 spider, when it lets itself drop — for it has the same 

 protective habit as the other — falls not so rapidly 

 as a green freshly broken off leaf or as the green 

 spider would fall, but with a slower motion, precisely 

 like a leaf withered up till it has become almost 

 light as a feather. It is not difficult to imagine how 

 this comes about : either a thicker line, or a greater 

 stiffness or tenacity of the viscid fluid composing 

 the web and attached to the point the spider drops 

 from, causes one to fall slower than the other. But 

 how many tentative variations in the stiffness of the 

 web material must there have been before the precise 

 degree was attained enabling the two distinct species, 

 differing in colour, to complete their resemblance to 

 falling leaves — afresh green leaf in one case and a 

 dead, withered leaf in the other ! 



The Tetragnatha — a genus of the Epeira family, 

 and known also in England — are small spiders 

 found on the margin of streams. Their bodies are 

 slender, oblong, and resembling a canoe in shape ; 

 and when they sit lengthwise on a stem or blade of 

 grass, their long, hair-like legs arranged straight 

 before and behind them, it is difficult to detect 

 them, so closely do they resemble a discoloured 

 stripe on the herbage. A species of Tetragnatha 



