






The Spinner Family 
den. Others stretch their filmy can- 
vas in fence corners and make a 
cellar out of a knot-hole in a post. 
Some of the most ambitious among 
them clamber up the side of a hay- 
stack and camp out on the very sum- 
mit of the fragrant pile. Another 
kind enters our homes and swings her 
tents, like hammocks, in the corners 
of the rooms, or in the window-cases 
of the cellar, or in any other niches 
where the tent may be swung and 
the owner find a safe retreat from the 
lower end of her stairway. 
Like the orb-weavers the tent-makers 
use two kinds of silk. ‘The tent is made 
chiefly of the dry, inelastic kind, but over 
the upper surface there are stretched a 
few threads of the gummy, elastic silk. 
You can determine this for yourself ; 
touch the under surface of the tent 
with your finger, and nothing happens. 
When you touch the upper surface 
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