food or INSECTS. 409 



weavers. I shall endeavour to describe the process fol- 

 lowed in the construction of both, beginning with the 

 latter. 



The weaving spider which is found in houses, having 

 selected some corner for the site of her web, and deter- 

 mined its extent, presses her spinners against one of 

 the walls, and thus glues to it one end of her thread. 

 She then walks along the wall to the opposite side, and 

 there in like manner fastens the other end. This thread, 

 which is to form the outer margin or selvage of her web, 

 and requires strength, she triples or quadruples by a re- 

 petition of the operation just described; and from it she 

 draws other threads in various directions, the interstices 

 of which she fills up by running from one to the other, 

 and connecting them by new threads until the whole has 

 assumed the gauze-like texture which we see. Books of 

 natural history, all copying from one another, have de- 

 scribed these kinds of web as fabricated of a regular 

 warp and woof, or of parallel longitudinal lines crossed 

 at right angles by transverse ones glued to them at the 

 points of intersection. This, however, is clearly erro- 

 neous, as you will see by the slightest examination of a 

 web of this kind, in which no such regularity of texture 

 can be discovered. 



The webs just described present merely a simple hori- 

 zontal surface, but others more frequently seen in out- 

 houses and amongst bushes possess a very artificial ap- 

 pendage. Besides the main web, the spider carries up 

 from its edges and surface a number of single threads 

 often to the height of many feet, joining and crossing- 

 each other in various directions. Across these lines, 



