FOOD OF INSECTS. 417 



thread attached itself to my coat, along which the spider 

 crept. As this was connected with the spinners of the 

 spider, it could not have been formed in the same way 

 with the secondary thread of A. Diadema above de- 

 scribed. 



Probably in this case, as in so many others, we be- 

 wilder ourselves by attempting to make nature bend to 

 generalities to which she disdains to submit. Different 

 spiders may lay the foundations of their net in a diffe- 

 rent manner ; some on the plan adopted by A. Diadema ,• 

 others, as Lister long ago conjectured 3 , by shooting out 

 threads in the mode of the flying species, as in the in- 

 stances recorded by the anonymous observer, and Mr. 

 Knight. Nor is it improbable that the same species has 

 the power of varying its procedures according to cir- 

 cumstances. 



How far these suppositions are correct it is impossible 

 to determine without further experiments, which it is 

 somewhat strange should not before now have been in- 

 stituted. Pliny thought it nothing to the credit of the 

 philosophers of his day, that while they were disputing 

 about the number of heroes of the name of Hercules, 

 and the site of the sepulchre of Bacchus, they should not 

 have decided whether the queen bee had a sting or not b ; 

 but it seems much more discreditable to the Entomolo- 

 gists of ours, that they should yet be ignorant how the 

 geometric spiders fix their nets. One excuse for them 

 is, that these insects generally begin their operations in 

 the night, so that, though it is very easy to see them 

 spinning their concentric circles, it is seldom that they 



a Hist. Aram. Ang. p. 7- b Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 17- 



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