Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-11-21
GEOMETRIC SNARES.
The Skillfuny Constructed Web oi
 the Spider.
How the Delicate Structure Is Put To- Sether by the Industrious Insect- Interesting Observations by
 Naturalist.

As the webs which my spiders, Lucy and Eliza, says writer in Longman's Magazine, spun were several times broken or mutilated during the year, either by accident or the gardener, we had plenty of chances for seeing how they proceeded in making them. The lines were in both cases stretched be- tween white rosebush that climbed up one side of the window and purple clematis that occupied and draped the opposite mullion. But Lucy and Eliza didn't live in the web-those were only their snares or traps for prey; each of them had in addition private home or apartment of her own under shelter of a roseleaf at some distance from the treacherous geomotrical structure. The house itself consisted merely of a sillzen cell, cut out from the roseleaf and con- nected with the snare by single stout cord of very solid construction. On this cord the spider kept one foot-I had al- most said one hand-constantly fixed. She poised it lightly by it's claws, and whenever an insect got entangled in the web subtle electric message, so to speak, seemed to run along the line to the ever-watchful carnivore. In one short second Lucy or Eliza, as the case might be, had darted out upon her quarry and was tackling it might and main, according to the particular way its size and strength rendered then and there advisable.
 In building their webs, as in many other small points, Lucy and Eliza showed from the first no inconsiderable personal differences. Lucy began hers by spinning a long line from her spin nerets and letting the wind carry it wherever it would, while Eliza, more architectural in character, preferred to take her lines personally from point to point and see herself to their proper fastening. In either case, however, the first thing done was to stretch some eight to ten stout threads from place to place on the outside of the future web, to act as points d'appui for the remain der of the structure. To these outer threads, which the spiders strength ened so as to bear a considerable strain by doubling and trebling them, other thinner single threads were then car. ried radially at irregular distances, like the spol1es of wheel, from a point in the center, where they were all made fast and connected together.
 As soon as this radiating framework or scaffolding was finished, like the wool on a~loom, the industrious crafts. woman started in the middle and began the task of putting in the cross pieces or weft, which were to complete and bind together the circular pattern These she wove round and round in g continuous spiral, setting out at the cen. ter and keeping on in overwhelming circle, till she arrived at last at the ex terior or foundation threads. How she fastened these crosspieces to the ray lines l could never quite make out, though often followed the work close ly from inside through the pane of glass with platyscopic lens; for, strange te say, the spiders were not in the leasr distur bed by being watched at theil work, and never took the slightest no tice of anything that went on at tho other side of the window. My impres sion is, however, that she gummet them together, letting them harder into one as they dried, for the thread itself is always semi-liquid when frs l eXuded.