346 



FOOD OF INSECTS. 



sometimes rests, as though her plan required meditation. But 

 no sooner are the marginal lines of her net firmly stretched, 

 and two or three radii spun from its centre, than she con- 

 tinues her labour so quickly and unremittingly that the eye 

 can scarcely follow her progress. The radii, to the number 

 of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a wheel, 

 are speedily finished. She then proceeds to the centre, 

 quickly turns herself round, and pulls each thread with her 

 feet to ascertain its strength, breaking any one that seems 

 defective and replacing it by another. Next, she glues im- 

 mediately round the centre five or six small concentric circles, 

 distant about half a line from each other, and then four or 

 five larger ones, each separated by a space of half an inch or 

 more. These last serve as a sort of temporary scalfolding to 

 walk over, and to keep the radii properly stretched whil6 she 

 glues to them the concentric circles that are to remain, which 

 she now proceeds to construct. Placing herself at the cir- 

 cumference, and fastening her thread to the end of one of 

 the radii, she walks up that one, towards the centre, to such 

 a distance as to draw the thread from her body of a sufficient 

 length to reach to the next ; then stepping across and con- 

 ducting the thread with one of her hind feet, she glues it 

 with her spinners to the point in the adjoining radius to which 

 it is to be fixed. This process she repeats until she has filled 

 up nearly the whole space from the circumference to the 

 centre with concentric circles, distant from each other about 

 two lines. She always, however, leaves a vacant interval 

 around the smallest first spun circles that are nearest to the 

 centre, but for what end I am unable to conjecture. Lastly, 

 she runs to the centre and bites away the small cotton-like 

 tuft that united all the radii, which being now held together 

 by the circular threads, have thus probably their elasticity 

 increased; and in the circular opening resulting from this 

 procedure, she takes her station and watches for her 

 prey.^ 



1 Mr. Blackwall, in his valuable paper « On the Manner in which the Geo- 

 metric Spiders construct their Nets," in the Zoological Journal, vol. v. p. 181., 

 has remarked that the above description is not applicable throughout to all geo- 



