OX ARACHNIDA. 
447 
slightest impression is sufficient to advertise the spider of the 
presence of its prey. It proceeds with the rapidity of lightning 
to the spot where the insect appears. If this, for instance, 
should prove to be a large fly, it envelopes it with a tolerably 
strong layer of silk, which it draws from its spinnerets ; it then 
attaches it to its own hinder part, and drags it within its den, 
that it may suck and devour it at leisure. If the fly be small, 
the spider carries it off without any envelope. But if, on the 
contrary, an insect which is larger than itself should fall into 
the net, it assists to disembarrass and disengage it, by break- 
ing some threads of the w eb, which it mends afterwards ; or, if 
the efforts which it has made have broken the web too much, 
it abandons it and forms a new one. Some species simply 
suck flies; others devour them altogether, leaving only the 
hardest parts. As the araneides have not always as many flies 
as they can eat, they are so organized as to be able to support 
a very long fast ; but when opportunity offers, they make full 
amends for this by gormandizing. They pass the winter in a 
sort of lethargy, and take no nourishment during that season. 
In every other, they can still remain many months without 
eating. It appears, from the observations of M. Amedee le 
Pelletier, that they have the faculty of reproducing the feet 
which they have lost. 
When one of these animals washes to commence its web, it 
causes to issue from its nipples a drop of the silky fluid. It ap- 
plies it against a wall or tree, and then removes from it, spinning. 
In proportion as it proceeds, this fluid, which at first w T as soft, 
assumes a consistence, grows thick, and forms a thread, which 
the spider glues to the opposite end of the w r all, or to another 
branch of the tree. It is thus that all the araneides commence 
their w’eb ; but they do not all finish it in the same manner. 
The domestic spider returns along the line to fix another to 
the place from whence it set out, returns on its path, to do the 
same at the other end, and continues the same manoeuvre until 
