230 | FOOD OF INSECTS. 
commonly see in houses are of a woven texture similar to fine gauze, and 
are appropriately termed webs; while those most frequently met with in 
the fields are composed of a series of concentric circles united by radij 
diverging from the centre, the threads being remote from each other, 
These last, which in their simple state, or still more when studded with 
dew drops, you must have a thousand times admired, are with greater pro- 
priety termed nefs; and the insects which form them proceeding on 
geometrical principles may be called geometricians, while the former can 
aspire only to the humbler denomination of weavers. shall endeavour to 
describe the process followed 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 determined 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 selyage of her web, and requires strength, she triples or qua- 
druples by a repetition of the operation just deseribed; 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 described 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 erroneous, 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 horizontal surface, but 
others more frequently seen in out-houses and amongst bushes possess a 
very artificial appendage. 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, which may be compared to the tackling of a ship, flies seem 
unable to avoid directing their flight. The certain consequence is, that in 
striking against these ropes they become slightly entangled, and, in their 
endeavours to disengage themselves, rarely escape being precipitated into 
the aa spread underneath for their reception, where their doom is ine- 
vitable, 
But the net is still incomplete. It is necessary that our hunter should 
conceal her grim visage from the game for which she lies in wait. She 
does not, therefore, station herself upon the surface of her net, but ina 
small silken apartment constructed below it, and completely hidden from 
view. “In this corner,” to use the quaint translation of Pliny by Phile- 
mon Holland, Doctor in Physic, “with what subtiltie doth she retire, 
making semblance as though she meant nothing less than that she doth, 
and as if she went about some other business! nay, how close lieth she, 
that it is impossible to see whether any one be within or no!” But thus 
removed to a distance from her net and entirely out of sight of it, how is 
she to know when her prey is entrapped? For this difficulty our inge- 
nious weaver has provided. She has taken care to spin several threads 
11, xi. ¢, 24, 
