210 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
time from the circumference to near the centre, and 
formed of web, covered with a viscid secretion to retain 
prey. Lastly, she constructs her lair to hide and watch 
for prey, at some distance from the web but connected 
with it by means of a line of communication or telegraph, 
the vibrations of which inform her of the struggling of an 
insect in the net. 1 
According to Thompson, — * 
The web of the garden spider — the most ingenious and per- 
fect contrivance that can be imagined — is usually fixed in a 
perpendicular or somewhat oblique direction in an opening 
between the leaves of some plant or shrub ; and as it is obvious 
that round its whole extent lines will be required to which 
those ends of radii that are farthest from the centre can be at- 
tached, the construction of those exterior lines is the spider’s 
first operation. It seems careless about the shape of the area 
they are to enclose, well aware that it can as readily inscribe a 
circle in a triangle as a square; and in this respect it is guided 
by the distance or proximity of the points to which it can attach 
them. It spares no pains, however, to strengthen and keep them 
in a proper degree of tension. With the former view it com- 
poses each line of five or six or even of more threads glued 
together ; and with the latter it fixes to them from different 
points a numerous and intricate apparatus of smaller threads ; 
and having thus completed the foundation of its snare, it pro- 
ceeds to fill up the outline. Attaching a thread to one of the 
main lines, it walks along it,, guiding it with one of its hind legs, 
that it may not touch in any part and be prematurely glued, and 
crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying its spinners, 
it firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread, which 
is to form the centre of its net, it fixes a second, which in like 
manner it conveys and fastens to another part of the lines in- 
cluding the area. The work now proceeds rapidly. During 
the preliminary operations it sometimes rests, as though its plan 
required meditation ; but no sooner are the marginal lines of 
the net firmly stretched, and two or three radii spun from its 
centre, than it continues its labour so quickly and unremittingly 
that the eye can scarcely follow its progress. The radii, to the 
number of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a 
wheel, are speedily finished. It then proceeds to the centre, 
quickly turns itself round, pulls each thread with its feet to 
ascertain its strength, breaking any one that seems defective, and 
1 Kirby, vol. ii., p. 298. 
