232 FOOD OF INSECTS. 
and keep them in a proper degree of tension. With the former view she 
composes each line of five or six or even more threads glued together ; 
and with the latter she fixes to them from different points a numerous 
and intricate apparatus of smaller threads. Having thus completed the 
foundations of her snare?, she proceeds to fill up the outline. Attaching a 
thread to one of the main lines, she walks along it, guiding it with one of 
her hind feet that it may not touch in any part and be prematurely glued, 
and crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying her spinners, she 
firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread, which is to form 
the centre of her net, she fixes a second, which in like manner she conveys 
and fastens to another part of the lines encircling the area. Her work 
now proceeds rapidly, During the preliminary operations she sometimes 
rests, as though her plan required meditation. But no sooner are the 
marginal lines of her net firmly stretched, and two or three radii spun 
from its centre, than she continues her labour so quickly and unremittingly 
that the eye can scarcely follow her progress. The radii, to the number of 
about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a wheel, are speedily 
finished. She then proceeds to the centre, quickly turns herself round, and 
pulls each thread with her feet to ascertain its strength, breaking any 
one that seems defective and replacing it by another. Next, she glues 
immediately round the centre five or six small concentric circles, distant 
about half a line from each other, and then four or five larger ones, each 
separated by a space of half an inch or more. These last serve as a sort 
of temporary scaffolding to walk over, and to keep the radii properly 
stretched while she glues to them the concentric circles that are to remain, 
which she now proceeds to construct. Placing herself at the circum- 
ference, and fastening her thread to the end of one of the radii, she walks 
up that one, towards the centre, to such a distance as to draw the thread 
from her body of a sufficient length to reach to the next; then stepping 
across, and conducting the thread with one of her hind feet, she glues it 
with her spinners to the point in the adjoining radius to which it is to be 
fixed. This process she repeats until she has filled up nearly the whole 
space from the circumference to the centre with concentric circles, distant 
from each other about two lines. She always, however, leaves a yacant 
interval around the smallest first spun circles that are nearest to the centre, 
but for what end I am unable to conjecture, Lastly, she runs to the 
centre and bites away the small cotton-like tuft that united all the radii, 
which being now held together by the circular threads, have thus probably 
their elasticity increased; and in the circular opening resulting ban this 
procedure, she takes her station and watches for her prey.? . 
eee eS ee 
was an account of a watchmaker having found one morning a gold ring weighing 
twelve grains, which he had left on his bench, suspended an inch high to a spider's 
thread, by which in the course of a week it was elevated eight inches, 
1 Tam not certain whether the garden spider does not more frequently form one 
or two of the principal radii of the net before she spins the axteulon buts . 
? Mr. Blackwall, in his valuable paper “On the Manner in which the Geometric 
Spiders construct their Nets,” in the Zoological Journal, vol. y. p. 181., has remarked 
that the above description is not applicable throughout to all geometric spiders, as 
some of them do not entirely surround the radii of their nets with concentric cireles, 
but leave one radius free, which serves as g sort of ladder for access to the net ; and 
as in general they do not bite away the small cotton-like tuft that unites the radii 
in the centre, nor place themselves there to watch their prey, but retire under a leaf 
