ORDER PULMONARLE. 391 
and Thomisi. These are principally the large threads which 
should serve as an attachment to the radii of the web, or those 
which compose its chain, and which, becoming more heavy in 
proportion to the degree of moisture, sink, approach towards 
each other, and end by being formed into pillets. They are 
often seen to unite near the web commenced by the animal, 
and where it remains. It is, moreover, probable, that many 
of these araneides, not having as yet a sufficient provision of 
silk, confine themselves to throwing out some simple threads 
to a distance. It is, in my opinion, to some young lycosae, 
that we must attribute those which are seen in great abund- 
ance crossing the furrows of ploughed fields, where they reflect 
the light of the sun. Chemically analyzed, these threads of 
the virgin present precisely the same characters as the silk of 
the spiders. They are not therefore formed in the atmosphere, 
as has been conjectured, for want of proper observations with 
his own eyes, by a philosopher, whose authority is of great 
weight, M. le Chevalier de Lamarck. Stockings and gloves 
have been fabricated with this silk, but such attempts not 
being susceptible of application on a large scale, and being 
subject to many difficulties, are more curious than useful. 
This substance is of much greater importance to the araneides. 
It is with it that the sedentary species, or those which do not 
hunt their prey, weave those webs of a tissue more or less com- 
pact, whose forms and positions vary according to the habits 
of each, and which are so many snares to take the insects on 
which they feed. These are scarcely arrested by means of the 
hooks of their tarsi, when the spider, sometimes placed in the 
centre of its net-work, or at the bottom of its web, sometimes 
in a peculiar habitation situated near it, and in one of its 
angles, runs up, approaches the insect, makes use of all its 
efforts to strike it with its murderous dart, and distil into the 
wound a poison which acts most promptly. When the insect 
opposes too powerful a resistance, or it might be dangerous to 
