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CONSTRUCTION OF AN ORBWEBR. 65 
lines were about nine feet long, and were stretched over the water at 
heights varying from one to ten feet. Most of them passed from wall to 
wall; many were fastened at one end upon piles and sticks driven here and 
there between the houses. (See Fig. 61.) It was a curious association, not 
to say analogy, which started in the observer's mind, as he saw the pic- 
turesque methods of the ancient ‘‘ Lake dwellers” thus used by modern men, 
and appropriated, with befitting modification, by the orbweaving araneads. 
Certainly their silken domiciles were well secured above the inlet on their 
silken frames, and were happily placed for obtaining ample food supplies 
Fic. 62. Spider suspension bridge over a stream. 
of green-head flies and other insects hoyering over the water. But when 
we ask ourselves, how were these snares built? we are constrained to call 
in the aeronautic habit and the air. It passes belief that these Epeiras 
carried their lines back and forth upon the rough waters of an inlet of 
the Atlantic Ocean. One must conclude that the foundations were formed 
by air currents. 
One must draw the same conclusion concerning those orbs found sus- 
pended over streams. I have seen these cobweb bridges at various times ; 
and they are not unfamiliar objects to wanderers in summer fields, woods, 
