374 
MR WATT ON THE 
Capricorn (Cerambix violaceus) and the Borer tribe (Pti- 
nus) subsist on old wood. 
I enclosed a young spider of the domestica species, some 
years ago, in a small box with a glass top, and air-holes ; I 
put nothing beside it but a very little brown sugar and 
magnesia. I observed that it consumed a considerable 
quantity of the sugar. I kept it three months on this fare ; 
and it both grew in size and activity. As the heat was 
great that season for about a month, in the south of Eng- 
land, where I then resided (Fahrenheit's thermometer 
often standing at 90° in the shade of an apartment), the 
spider I remarked, drank up with great avidity a small 
drop of water when presented on the end of a quill. This 
it frequently did when the temperature was high. The 
spider had lost one of its legs when I got it ; but the first 
time it cast its skin (which spiders do often whilst growing), 
a young leg appeared lying along the thorax. It was 
short and white at first, but soon became dark and as long 
as the other. I have no doubt that the web of the spider 
supplies it with drink from the dew it collects. 
I have remarked also that the garden-spider has taken 
small pieces of raisins when thrown upon its web, and 
sucked the saccharine juice. If a piece of paper or other 
substance was thrown on the webs, the spiders did not 
touch it, or threw it over the web ; whilst they took the 
small bits of raisin into their lurking places. 
About the end of last Autumn (1828), a house-spider 
made its nest on the roof of my dining room, and as I did 
not allow it to be touched, it remained there for six weeks. 
The animal completed its nest in the form of a ball, and 
attached it on every side to the roof. During that time 
no insect ever approached it that I could observe. But 
the whiting or size of the roof was peeled off to the extent 
of two inches around the nest, and I have every reason 
