SPIDERS. 343 



was stirring, and I am sure I did not assist it with 

 my breath."* 



Having so often witnessed the thread set afloat in 

 the air by spiders, we can readily conceive the way 

 in which those eminent naturalists were led to sup- 

 pose it to be ejected by some animal force acting like 

 a syringe ; but as the statement can be completely 

 disproved by experiment, we shall only at present 

 ask, in the words of Svvammerdam — "how it can be 

 possible that a thread so fine and slender should be 

 shot out with force enough to divide and pass through 

 the air ? — is it not rather probable that the air would 

 stop its progress, and so entangle it, and fit it to per- 

 plex the spider's operations P"f The opinion, indeed, 

 is equally improbable with another, suggested by Dr. 

 Lister, that the spider can retract her thread within 

 the abdomen, after it has been emitted.^ De Geer§ 

 very justly joins Swammerdam in rejecting both of 

 these fancies, which, in our own earlier observations 

 upon spiders, certainly struck us as plausible and 

 true. There can be no doubt, indeed, that the animal 

 has a voluntary power of permitting the material to 

 escape, or stopping it at pleasure, but this power is 

 not projectile. 



3. " There are many people," says the Abbe" de la 

 Pluche, " who believe that the spider flies when they 

 see her pass from branch to branch, and even from 

 one high tree to another ; but she transports herself 

 in this manner : she places herself upon the end of 

 a branch, or some projecting body, and there fastens 

 her thread ; after which, with her two hind feet, she 

 squeezes her dugs (spinnerets), and presses out one or 

 more threads of two or three ells in length, which she 

 leaves to float in the air till it be fixed to some par- 



• Nat. Hist, of Selborne, vol. i. p. 327. 



f Book of Nature, part i. p. 25. 



I Hist. Anim. Angliso, 4to. $ Memoires, vol. vii. p. 189. 



