Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/193

 have often endeavored to make her construct a nest under our eye, we have been as unsuccesful as in similar experiments with the common house spider (Aranea domestica).

"The house spider's proceedings were long ago described by Homberg, and the account has been copied, as usual, by almost every subsequent writer. Goldsmith has, indeed, given some strange mis-statements from his own observations, and Bingley has added the original remark, that, after fixing its first thread, creeping along the wall, and joining it as it proceeds, it 'darts itself to the opposite side, where the other end is to be fastened !' Homberg's spider took the more circuitous route of travelling to the opposite wall, carrying in one of its claws the end of the thread previously fixed, lest it should stick in the wrong place. This we believe to be the correct statement, for as the web is always horizontal, it would seldom answer to commit a floating thread to the wind, as is done by other species. Homberg's spider, after stretching as many lines by way of warp as it deemed sufficient between the two walls of the corner which it had chosen, proceeded to cross this in the way our weavers do in adding the woof, with this difference, that the spider's threads were only laid on, and not interlaced. The domestic spiders, however, in these modern days, must have forgot this mode of weaving, for none of their webs will be found thus regularly constructed!"

The geometric, or net-working spiders (See Fig. 12. Plate IV.) are as well known as any of the preceding; almost every bush and tree in our gardens and hedge-rows having one or more of their nests stretched out in a vertical position between adjacent branches. The common garden spider (Epeira diadema), and the long-bodied spider (Tetragnatha extensa), are the best known of this order.

"The chief care of a spider of this sort," says Mr. Rennie, "is, to form a cable of sufficient strength to bear the net she means to hang upon it; and after throwing out a floating line as above described, when it catches properly, she doubles and