342 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



parated from their bodies, when thus shot out, the 

 threads of the former remain fixed to their anus, as 

 the sun's rays to its body."* A French periodical 

 writer goes a little farther, and says, that spiders have 

 the power of shooting out threads, and directing them 

 at pleasure towards a determined point, judging of 

 the distance and position of the object by some sense 

 of which we are ignorant, f Kirby also says, that 

 he once observed a small garden-spider (Aranea reti- 

 culata) "standing midway on a long perpendicular 

 fixed thread, and an appearance caught " his " eye, 

 of what seemed to be the emission of threads." " I," 

 therefore, he adds, " moved my arm in the direction 

 in which they apparently proceeded, and, as I had 

 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" by breaking a " secondary thread. "\ 

 Again, in speaking of the gossamer-spider, he says, 

 "it first extends its thigh, shank, and foot, into a 

 right line, and then, elevating its abdomen till it be- 

 comes vertical, shoots its thread into the air, and flies 

 off from its station."§ 



Another distinguished naturalist, Mr. White of 

 Selborne, in speaking of the gossamer-spider, says, 

 "Everyday in fine weather in autumn do I see 

 these spiders shooting out their webs, and mounting 

 aloft : they will go off from the finger, if you will 

 take them into your hand. Last summer, one 

 alighted on my book as I was reading in the par- 

 lour ; and running to the top of the page, and 

 shooting out a we.b, took its departure from thence. 

 But what I most wondered at was, that it went off 

 with considerable velocity in a place where no air 



• LUter, Hist. Animalia AnglisD, 4to. p. 7. 



t Phil. Mag. ii. p. 275. 



t Vol. i. Intr. p. 417. § Ibid. ii. p. 339. 



