368 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



and so on, as any one may try by placing a spider at 

 the bottom of a very clean wine-glass. 



The hairs of the legs, however, are always catching 

 bits of web and particles of dust ; but these are not 

 suffered to remain long. Most people may have re 

 marked that the house-fly is ever and anon brushing 

 its feet upon one another to rub off the dust, though 

 we have not seen it remarked in authors that spiders 

 are equally assiduous in keeping themselves clean. 

 They have, besides, a very efficient instrument in their 

 mandibles or jaws, which, like their claws, are 

 furnished with teeth ; and a spider which appears to a 

 careless observer as resting idly, in nine cases out of 

 ten will be found slowly combing her legs with her 

 mandibles, beginning as high as possible on the thigh 

 and passing down to the claws. The flue which she' 

 thus combs off is regularly tossed away.* 



With respect to the house-spider (A. domeslicd) 

 we are told in books, that " she from time to time' 

 clears away the dust from her web, and sweeps the 

 whole by giving it a shake with her paw, so nicely 

 proportioning the force of her blow, that she never 

 breaks anything ."t That spiders mav be seen 

 shaking their webs in this manner, we readily admit; 

 though it is not, we imagine, to clear them of dust! 

 but to ascertain whether they are sufficiently sound 

 and strong. 



We recently witnessed a more laborious process of 

 cleaning a web than merely shaking it. On coming 

 down the Maine by the steem-boat from Frankfort, 

 in August 1829, we observe the geometric-net of a' 

 conic-spider (Epeira arnica, Wai.ck.) on the frame- 

 work of the deck, and as it was covered with flakes 

 of soot from the smoke of the engine, we were sur- 

 prised to see a spider at work on it ; for, in order to 



* See Insect Transformations, page 358, foramoic minute account. 

 T Spectacle <le la Nature, i. p. 61. 



