The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1893-02-01
TWO SPIDERS, LUCY AND ELIZA.
How the Busy Insects Built Their Very
Ingenious GeometricaI Snares.

AS the webs which my spiders, Lucy
and Eliza, 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, says
writer in Longnad2a'S Magazine. The
| lines were in both cases stretched be-
tween white rosebush that climbed
up one side of the window and pur-
pie 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 roseleaf at some dis
| tance from the treacherous geometrl-
cal structure.
The house itself consisted merely of
a silken cell, but out from the roseleaf
and connected with the snare by a
single stout cord of very solid con-
struction. On this cord the spider
kept one foot had almost said one
lhand-constantly fixed. She poised it
Tightly by its claws, and whenever any
insect got entangled in the web a
subtle electric message, so to speak,
seemed to run along the line to the
ever-watchful carnivora. 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 inconsider-
J able personal differences. Lucy began
hers by spinning long line from her
: spinnerets and letting the wind carry
| it wherever it would; while Eliza,
more architectural in character, pre-
) ferred to take her lines personally
} from point to point, and see herself to
) the proper fastening. In either case,
> however, the first thing done was to
| stretch some eight or ten stout threads
: from place to place on the outside o1
9 the future web, to act as points dap,
Ipul for the remainder of the struc-
I ture.
: To these outer threads, which the
| spiders strengthened so as to bear s
r considerable strain by doubling anc
t trebling them, other thinner single
/. threads were then carried radially a
v irregular distances, like the spokes of {
g wheel, from point in the center
: where they were all made fast ane
9 connected together.
AS soon as this radiating framework
or scaffolding was finished, like thu
woof of loom, the industrious crafts
woman started in the middle and be
gan the task of putting in the eros
, pieces or welt, which were to complet
and bind together the circular pat
j, tern.
. These she wove round and round il
= continuous spiral, setting out in th
Z center and keeping on in ever widen
ing circlets, till she arrived at last a
the exterior or foundation threads
, How she fastened these cross pieces t
L the rap lines could never quite max
:; out, though often followed the wor
closely from the inside through tn
b pane of glass with platyscopic lens
= for, strange to say, the spiders wer
:, not in the least disturbed by bein
! watched at their work and never too
q the slightest notice of anything tha
y went on at the other side of the wiz
Z dow. My impression is, however, tbs
. she gummed them together, lettin
them harden into one as they driee
= for the thread itself is always sem
: liquid when first exuded.