INSECTS AND THEIR NEAR RELATIVES. 25 
sists of loose flossy silk (Fig. 24). One of the most common 
kinds is very flat, silvery in color, and is 
firmly attached to stones lying upon the 
ground (Fig. 25). 
Every on~ knows that a spider wishing 
to descend to some place beneath it simply 
fastens a line to the object which it is 
upon and then drops boldly off, regulat- Fic 25 ._ Egff . sac of a 
ing the rate of its descent by spinning Drassid * 
the line rapidly or slowly; when the spider wishes to return, 
it has only to climb up the same line. 
Frequently spiders pass from point to point in a hori¬ 
zontal direction by means of silken bridges. These are 
formed in this way : The spider spins out a thread, which is 
carried off by a current in the air. After a time the thread 
strikes some object and adheres to it; then the spider pulls 
the line tight, and fastens it where it is standing. It then 
has a bridge, along which it can easily run. 
But more remarkable than either of these uses of silk for 
locomotion is the fact that many spiders are able to travel 
long distances, hundreds of miles, through the air by means 
of these silken threads— 
“sailing mid the golden air 
In skiffs of yielding gossamere.”—( Hogg .) 
The Aeronautic Spiders, or Flying Spiders, as they are 
more commonly called, are frequently very abundant, espe¬ 
cially in warm antumn days. At such times innumerable 
threads can be seen streaming from fences, from bushes, and 
the tips of stalks of grass, or floating through the air. The 
flying spider climbs to some elevated point, which may be 
merely the tip of a stalk of grass, and then, standing on the 
tips of its feet, lifts its body as high as it can, and spins out 
a thread of silk. This thread is carried up and away by a 
current of air. When the thread is long enough the force of 
the air current on it is sufficient to buoy the spider up. It 
