THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 197 



CHAPTER VIII. 



UPHOLSTERERS AND CARPENTERS. 



How often, despite our proud pretensions, is our indus- 

 trial work coarse compai'ed to tliat of the lowest creatures ! 

 Can tlie thread spun by man be compared to that of the 

 spider? Nevertheless the work of the insect exhibits a 

 complication we should be far from exjoecting; for fine as 

 it is, it results from the union of many distinct threads. 

 It is produced by four or six teats situated at the extremity 

 <jf the abdomen, and the silky matter itself issues b}^ a 

 sieve; each sieve contains, according to Bonnet, more than 

 a thousand holes. In proportion as the filaments are 

 projected outwards, they agglutinate together in such a 

 manner that each thread is composed of at least 4000, 

 and sometimes of 6000 fibres, and yet Leuwenhoeck 

 affirms that it is so slender as to require 4,000,000 to make 

 up a silk thread as thick as one of the hairs of one's beard. ^ 



The threads of some exotic species possess a much 

 greater 230wer of resistance than we observe in ours. 

 Travellers relate that in ecjuatorial countries spider-webs 

 are seen strong enough to arrest humming-birds as a net 

 would, and it has even been said that a man only breaks 

 them Avith difficulty. 



1 Kirby and Spence say that the holes of the threads are so fine and so crowded 

 together, that there are 1000 of them in the space covereil by the point of a 

 needle. 



