SPIDERS. 341 



twisted it once or twice round the pencil, and then 

 drew it tight. The spider, which had previously- 

 climbed to the top of the stick, immediately pulled 

 at it with one of its feet, and finding it sufficiently 

 tense, crept along it, strengthening it as it pro- 

 ceeded by another thread, and thus reached the pen- 

 cil." 



We have repeatedly witnessed this occurrence, both 

 in the fields, and when spiders were placed for ex- 

 periment, as Kirby has described ; but we very much 

 doubt that the thread broken is ever intended as a 

 bridge cable, or that it would have been so used in 

 that instance, had it not been artificially fixed and ac- 

 cidentally found again by the spider. According to 

 our observations, a spider never abandons, for an in- 

 stant, the thread which she despatches in quest of an 

 attachment, but uniformly keeps trying it with her 

 feet, in order to ascertain its success. We are, there- 

 fore, persuaded, that when a thread is broken in the 

 manner above described, it is because it has been 

 spun too weak, and spiders may often be seen break- 

 ing such threads in the process of netting their webs.* 



The plan, besides, as explained by these distin- 

 guished writers, would more frequently prove abor- 

 tive than successful, from the cut thread not being 

 sufficiently long. They admit, indeed, that spiders' 

 lines are often found " a yard or two long, fastened to 

 twigs of grass not a foot in height Here, there- 

 fore, some other process must have been used."f 



2. Our celebrated English naturalist, Dr. Lister, 

 whose treatise upon our native spiders has been the 

 basis of every subsequent work on the subject, main- 

 tains that " some spiders shoot out their threads in 

 the same manner that porcupines do their quills; 

 that, whereas the quills of the latter are entirely se- 



* J. R. f Kirb y and Spence, vol. i. Intr.p.-416. 



