off suddenly; they fly away, so to speak.
It is as though they had the wings of a Gnat.

Forthwith they disappear from view. Nothing that my eyes can see
explains this strange flight; for precise observation is impossible amid
the disturbing influences out of doors. What is wanted is a peaceful
atmosphere and the quiet of my study.

I gather the family in a large box, which I close at once, and instal it
in the animals' laboratory, on a small table, two steps from the open
window. Apprised by what I have just seen of their propensity to resort
to the heights, I give my subjects a bundle of twigs, eighteen inches
tall, as a climbing-pole. The whole band hurriedly clambers up and
reaches the top. In a few moments there is not one lacking in the group
on high. The future will tell us the reason of this assemblage on the
projecting tips of the twigs.

The little Spiders are now spinning here and there at random: they go up,
go down, come up again. Thus is woven a light veil of divergent threads,
a many-cornered web with the end of the branch for its summit and the
edge of the table for its base, some eighteen inches wide. This veil is
the drill-ground, the work-yard where the preparations for departure are
made.

Here hasten the humble little creatures, running indefatigably to and
fro. When the sun shines upon them, they become gleaming specks and form
upon the milky background of the veil a sort of constellation, a reflex
of those remote points in the sky where the telescope shows us endless
galaxies of stars. The immeasurably small and the immeasurably large are
alike in appearance. It is all a matter of distance.

But the living nebula is not composed of fixed stars; on the contrary,
its specks are in continual movement. The young Spiders never cease
shifting their position on the web. Many let themselves drop, hanging by
a length of thread, which the faller's weight draws from the spinnerets.
Then quickly they climb up again by the same thread, which they wind
gradually into a skein and lengthen by successive falls. Others confine
themselves to running about the web and also give me the impression of
working at a bundle of ropes.

The thread, as a matter of fact, does not flow from the spinneret; it is
drawn thence with a certain effort. It is a case of extraction, not
emission. To obtain her slender cord, the Spider has to move about and
haul, either by falling or by walking, even as the rope-ma