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single insect involves the ruin of the cunning machine elaborately 
built to accomplish it. 
As to webs in general, it may be said that as the radii are gen- , 
erally covered with the viscid gum, the web is very elastic, yield¬ 
ing to the struggles of insects without breaking, and withstanding 
the force of the wind. If the wind is strong, however, the spider 
shows her intelligence by loading the web with sticks and small 
pebbles to hold it firmly in place. The accuracy of web building is 
determined by feeling, the eyes being away from the work ; the sense 
of touch in the feet being so acute, that in experiments made for 
the purpose, the web has been woven accurately in total darkness. 
Another point of interest is, that silk may be reeled directly 
from the body of the spider. As the spider drops from the limb 
of a tree, having first fastened the filament of the silk to the limb, 
and reels out as she descends ; so, on the other hand, an expert in 
handling spiders may force the spider to remain stationary, while 
the silk is drawn from her body. The observer before referred to 
captured many of the so-called Charleston spiders and performed 
many experiments, among which, was the reeling of silk directly 
from the spider’s body. From these experiments we have some 
knowledge of the enormous silk producing capacity of the spider, 
the exceeding fineness and beauty of the material, and the weight 
and strength of it. Finding a beautiful specimen one day on 
Folly Island, he placed it on the side of his tent, and lying down 
on his camp-bed, attached the thread to a quill, and wound it 
round and round. In one minute, six feet of silk were wound 
upon it, and at the end of an hour and a half he estimated that he 
had wound over four hundred feet. During all this time the 
spider remained perfectly quiet, but at the end of the time sum¬ 
marily stayed proceedings by grasping the line with one of her 
feet and snapping it. This might be called literally getting to 
the end of one’s rope. 
Another officer interested in the subject at the same time, fixing 
a number of spiders stationary by means of pins placed one on 
each side at the articulation, constructed a cylinder worked by a 
crank, and thus reeled the beautiful golden silk upon hard rubber 
rings making very pretty ornaments. To ascertain how much 
silk could be obtained from one spider, one of these little ma- 
