Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-01-18
GEOMETRIC SHARES.
The Skillfully Constructed Web OF
the Spider.
How the Delicate Structure Il Put To-
gether by the Industrious Insect
Interesting Observations by
. Naturalist.

AS the webs which my spiders, Lucy
and Eliza, says a 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
Zines were in both cases stretched be-
tween a white rosebush that climbed
up one side of the window and a 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
roseleaf at some distance from the
treacherous geometrical structure. The
house itself consisted merely of silken
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 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
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 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 30 as to bear a considerable strain
| by dou bling and trebling them, other
thinner single threads were then car
ried radially at irregular distances, like
the spokes Of a 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
woof on loom, the industrious crafts
woman started In the middle and began
the task Of putting in the cross pieces
or welt, which were to complete and
bind together the circular pattern.
These she wove round and round in a
continuous spiral, setting out at the CEN
ter and keeping on in Overwhelming
circle, till she arrived at last at the ex-
terror or foundation threads. How she
fastened these crosspieces to the ray
lines could never quite make out,
though often followed the work close
ly from inside through the pane of glass
with platyscopic lens; for, strange to
say, the spiders were not in the least
distur bed by being watched at their
work, and never took the slightest no
tice of anything that went on at the
other side of the window My impress
sion is, however, that she gummed
them together, letting them harden
into one as they dried, for the thread
itself is always semi-liquid when first
expded.