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ON THE FOOD OF SPIDERS. 
formed for watching the approach of prey, but it is also 
constructed no less obviously that they may escape being 
surprised by an enemy, as they can run off either by the 
upper or lower part of the web ; and birds, large beetles, 
the smaller quadrupeds, and their own species are all their 
enemies. I have often met with some of the Aranea do- 
mestica in the Isle of Wight^ that measured from the ex- 
tremity of the longest leg to the extremity of the opposite 
one, when stretched out, six and a-half inches : whilst the 
body was comparatively long and thin. As these spiders 
cannot throw out their threads, they always commence their 
webs in the corner of an apartment, or where they can find 
some angle where they can fix their first and shortest 
threads ; and the collection of threads they draw out ap- 
pears often the breadth of a third of the diameter of the 
animal's body. 
Description of Plate V. 
1. The gossamer, or young geometric spider, beginning to ascend 
into the atmosphere, by the buoyancy of the threads it has 
emitted. 
2. The spider, coalescing by means of some subtile fluid, about a 
dozen filaments, into one thread, so as to bring all the fila- 
ments into a straight line, and with it to strike the opposite 
object. 
3. The manner in which the geometric spider shoots out its 
thread when about to form its web ; so as to fix its first 
line betwixt two perpendicular bodies, at any distance, and 
at any elevation. 
4. The form of the combination of threads which the domestic 
spider dram out when forming its web. 
