166 
NATURE’S CRAFTSMEN 
of silk, especially if the burrow is drilled in loose 
soil. Near the surface it is thicker and heavier 
than it is deeper down; we can well understand 
why this should be so. 
“Not one of our insect neighbors is more de¬ 
voted to her family than is the Lycom. If you 
keep an eye on the colony I have discovered, you 
may possibly see a female weaving her egg-sac, 
but I doubt it, as they are very shy. Even the 
less important business of turret-building is car¬ 
ried on after nightfall and in the dim morning 
hours before the early worm catchers get abroad. 
Fabre had the good luck to observe a weaver 
which he had confined in his laboratory. Early 
one morning he crept up and found her busily 
engaged in spinning a silken network on the 
ground. It was coarse and shapeless, but firmly 
fixed, and when finished covered a space about as 
large as the palm of his hand. This, it appeared, 
was intended for the floor of the spider’s abode, 
but later the old naturalist discovered that it was 
only a carpet spread upon the particular spot the 
JLycosa had selected for a workshop. 
“ The real business in hand was the fashioning 
of her egg-sac, and the carpet was only a provi¬ 
sionary measure to keep the precious pill from 
becoming soiled. She began by weaving a fine 
little mat of superb white silk, about the size of a 
fifty-cent piece, with the outer edge thickened 
