256 CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



food, have prevented any considerable success in this 

 direction. 



Wlaen a garden spider is about to construct one of 

 the beautiful nests shovpn in the illustration, she gen- 

 erally selects a corner of a fence or an open window, 

 or one with a broken pane of glass, or an open 

 space through which flies after the manner of their 

 kind love to dart in and out. It is also necessary that 

 there should be a crevice or crack near at hand in 

 which, when occasion offers, to take refuge. 



The spider begins by attaching a line and car- 

 rying it across and fastening it to the opposite side ; 

 across the center of the space to be occupied by the 

 web to the middle of this line she attaches another, 

 the other end of which is fastened an inch or so dis- 

 tant from one end of the first line. She then returns 

 and repeats the same movements with a third line, 

 which in its turn is stretched from the common 

 center of the first and second lines to a point as far 

 away from the second thread as that is from the first. 

 And so she proceeds, stopping occasionally in the 

 center to draw her lines taut and fasten them more 

 securely by additional short cross-lines spun here and 

 there, until all the gray lines or rays of her net are 

 completed. 



When this is done the spider has a framework 

 that unites strength to elasticity in a remarkable de- 

 gree, tliat yields to the sliglitest pressure and the 

 severest test in proportion to the size of the lines that 

 compose it, and in both cases immediately recovers its 

 position whole and uninjured. 



