SPIDER. 
521 
which she leaves floating in the air. These threads 
are wafted by the wind from one side to another, 
and lodged on a tree, a stake, or any thing that 
may happen to he in the way, to which they are 
fastened by their natural glue. She afterwards draws 
them towards her, to try if they are well fixed or 
not, and then they become a bridge, over which 
the spider passes and repasses in full liberty. She 
doubles and extends the thread as much as she 
thinks fit, by joining the shortest slips together, 
and then marches over a third part, or to the mid- 
dle of the same thread, and adds another to it, by 
the aid of which she descends till she meets with a 
stone, a plant, or some solid body to rest on, or else 
she leaves it to fluctuate in the air, till it be fixed 
to some particular place. By this second thread 
she ascends to the first, and at some distance begins 
a third, which she fastens by the same management. 
When she has fixed three threads, she makes them 
stronger by doubling them, and then by passing in 
a different direction forms a square, in which she 
makes a cross with the same industry, whose middle 
point becomes a centre. To this centre she draws 
threads from every side, like the spokes of a wheel, 
which all terminate in the nave. Round this centre' 
she projects a small circle, after which she begins 
another a little more distant, and always continues 
to draw this circular thread from one spoke to an- 
other, till she comes to the large threads which sus- 
tain the whole work. 
When the net is thus spread, her next care is to 
