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STRENGTH OF WEBS AND POWER OF SPIDERS. 233 
and perfectly pliable, was furnished, and this material connection be- 
tween the wire cross and the clock pendulum proved to be exactly the 
thing required. In proof of this remark I need only state the fact that 
one single spider’s web has fulfilled the delicate duty of moving the wire 
cross, lifting it and again permitting it to dip into the mercury every sec- 
ond of time for a period of more than three years! How much longer 
it might have faithfully performed the same service I know not, as it then 
became necessary to break this admirable bond, to make some changes in 
the clock. Here it will be seen that the same web was expanded and 
contracted each second during the whole period, and yet never, so far as 
could be observed, lost any portion of its elasticity.” 
De Laet,! in his Novus Orbus, as early as A. D. 1633 speaks of certain 
beautiful spiders, elegantly marked by various colors, which build nets 
strong enough to entrap small birds. Of others, or perhaps the same spe- 
cies, he says that their webs are so tough that they can scarcely be broken.? 
Sir Hans Sloane * describes a West Indies spider, which he calls the 
“Great Yellowish Wood Spider,” and which is undoubtedly a species of 
Nephila, perhaps N. clavipes or N. plumipes, as making a web 
strong enough to ensnare birds. ‘They have,” he says, “an 
almost spiral large Web made of Yellow Spider’s Thread, like Silk, 
glutinous or viscid, with which it will stop not only small Birds, 
but even wild Pigeons; they are so strong as to give a Man inveigled in 
them Trouble for some Time with their viscid sticking Quality.” He also 
cites ‘Smith of Bermudas” (page 172) as describing “certain spiders of a 
large size, not dangerous, but making a sort of raw silk, catching birds 
bigger than blackbirds and like snipes, in their nets.” 
Wallace, speaking of the spiders of the Aru Islands, in the Malay 
Archipelago, says that the web spinning species were a great annoyance, 
stretching their nets across the footpaths just about the height of his 
face; the threads composing which were so strong and glutinous as to 
require much trouble to free one’s self from them.4 Mr. Mosely, the 
naturalist of the “Challenger,” says that at Little Ke Island, 
Webs — one of the same group, “Von Willemos Suhn actually found 
Entrap ; Bets . * , 
Birds. a strong, healthy ‘glossy Starling’ (Calornis metallica), caught 
fast in a Yellow spider’s web, and he took the bird out alive 
and brought it on board the ship to be preserved.”® 
Vinson gives like testimony from observations made in the African 
Island of Réunion. The young spiders that encamp in innumerable 
Strength 
of the 
Snares. 
1 Noyus Orbus Ionne de Laet, Ao. 1633, page 29. “Aranese * * * que estate ita 
validas telas nent, ut minores avicule illis irretantur.” 
2 “Qui telas nent ita pertinaces ut vix disrumpi possint.” Id., page 673. 
’ Natural History of Jamaica, Vol. I., page 196, A. D. 1725. 
*The Malay Archipelago, Alfred Russel Wallace, page 437. 
5 A Naturalist on the “Challenger,” page 382. 
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