FOOD OF INSECTS. 285 
spiders have the power of shooting out threads and directing them at 
fiseaitse towards a determined point, judging of the distance and position 
of the object by some sense of which we are ignorant. Something like 
this manuvre I once myself witnessed in a male of the small garden 
spider (Hpeira? reticulata). It was standing midway on a long perpen- 
dicular fixed thread, and an appearance caught my eye of what seemed to 
be the emission of threads from its projected spinners. I therefore moved 
my arm in the direction in which they apparently proceeded, and, as I 
suspected, a floating 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 
E, Diadema above described. 
Probably in this case, as in so many others, we bewilder 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 dif- 
ferent manner; some on the plan adopted by 2. Diadema; others, as 
Lister long ago conjectured!, by shooting out threads in the mode of the 
flying species, as in the instances 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 circumstances. 
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 instituted. 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®; but it seems much more discreditable to the entomologists 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 spin- 
ning their concentric circles, it is seldom that they can be caught laying 
the foundations of their snares. Yet doubtless the lucky moment might 
be hit by an attentive observer, and I shall be glad if my attempt to de- 
scribe their more ordinary operations should induce you to aim at sig- 
nalising yourself by the discovery. If you failed in solving every difficulty, 
you would at least be rewarded by witnessing their industry, ingenuity, 
and patience. : 
For the latter virtue they have no small occasion. -Incapable of ac- 
tively pursuing their prey, they are dependent upon what chance conducts 
into their toils, which, especially those spread in neglected buildings, often re- 
main fora long period empty. Even the geometrical spiders, which fix them- 
selves in the midst of a well-peopled district in the open air, have frequently 
to sustain a protracted abstinence. A continued storm of wind and rain 
will demolish their nets, and preclude the possibility of reconstructing them 
or many days or sometimes weeks, during which not even a single gnat 
tegales their sharp-set appetites. And when at length formed anew or 
repaired, an unlucky bee or wasp, or an overgrown fly, will perversely 
entangle itself in toils not intended for insects of its bulk, and in disen= 
gaging itself once more leave the net in ruin. All these trials move not 
our philosophic race. They patiently sit in their watching place in the 
Same posture, scarcely even stirring but when the expected prey appears. 
1 Hist. Anim. Ang. p. 7. 2 Plin, Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 17. 
