A RACE OF TELEGRAPHERS 19 
merely a mesh of threads, which holds the eggs 
together but does not conceal them; the cave spi¬ 
ders build such nurseries, so do the shamrock spi¬ 
ders—both interesting species, by the way. Next 
to these come the fluffy masses of silk which ef¬ 
fectually hide the eggs but follow no particular 
form; this is the design preferred by our common 
house spiders. Then follows a wide range of 
clever silk-fashioned shapes, most of which are 
further safeguarded by an opaque covering, or 
by the addition of layers of foreign substance. 
The egg-sac of Madame Miranda, the orange 
garden spider, you remember, is enclosed in a 
brown pear-shaped sac. On being opened, a sec¬ 
ond covering of thick flossy silk is exposed, and 
this in turn yields up a dainty silken cup filled 
with eggs. A cousin of Madame Miranda’s, the 
banded garden spider, builds a cup-shaped 
nursery, with a flat top. A commensal spider 
commonly found in the webs of the garden spider 
clan puts her eggs in a dainty Grecian vase and 
suspends it from the web by a thin rope of silk. 
The grass-spider covers its egg-sacs with bits of 
bark and moss; another spider decorates its sac 
with tufts of different colored silk; and yet an¬ 
other with strong mason instincts plasters its 
silken nursery all over with mud and tucks it 
under a chip or stone, making it fast to its moor¬ 
ings with a strong thread. A certain California 
