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web, she suddenly lets go with her fore feet all the slack line, and 
the web being lower and heavier, the apex line is drawn taut, the 
net falls outward and downward upon itself in a kind of collapse, 
the transverse elastic and gummy lines are brought nearer together, 
and thus the entanglement of the prey is insured. The spider then 
creeps cautiously out on one of the radii, and if she is not sure of 
her game runs back draws everything taut as before, and if the 
insect is still in the toils again lets go with a snap ; she has been 
known to repeat this six times in succession before venturing a per¬ 
sonal encounter with her victim. 
But furthermore, and still more wonderful, she has another 
method of using her web. Contrary to the popular belief that 
animals have but one way of doing things, they often have several, 
conforming their action to circumstances. For sometimes, this 
spider, instead of simply letting go the slack line, takes more des¬ 
perate measures. Fastening a new line to the tree behind her for 
her support, and reeling from her body as she advances keeping 
thus a line of possible retreat in the rear, she cuts the apex line 
with her jaws, still holding to the line in front of the cut she has 
made, and supported in the rear by the new line attached behind ; 
- 
she then again advances and grasps all the radii where they meet 
and cuts them with her jaws; advances again, rapidly, and bites 
off more still, holding by what remains with her fore feet; at each 
successive cut, as she advances, the web slackens, recoils and falls 
into collapse, just as it did in the former case when she simply let 
go the slack line, until, finally, spreading her feet far apart she 
gathers up the radii once more and with a quick movement 
throws the whole of the web like a blanket over her prey. Then 
grasping the whole mass she transfers it to the third pair of feet 
which roll it over and over, while she holds on to the ruin of the 
web alone with her fore feet, and with the hinder feet she draws 
out from her spinners broad bands of new silk, winding it around 
and around the struggling insect, now hardly visible. Having 
reduced insect, web, and all, to a rounded mass, she seizes the 
whole mass, the insect in his silken shroud, more dead than alive, 
and mounts with it to the recent scene of her waiting patience and 
there devours her prey. This spider thus completely sacrifices its 
web, the product of so much toil and skill, and the capture of a 
