all rosemaries
to the next. Should things move too slowly, we will sit down at the foot
of the shrubs, opposite the rope-yard, where the light falls favourably,
and watch with unwearying attention. Each trip will be good for a fact
that fills some gap in the ideas already gathered. To appoint one's
self, in this way, an inspector of Spiders' webs, for many years in
succession and for long seasons, means joining a not overcrowded
profession, I admit. Heaven knows, it does not enable one to put money
by! No matter: the meditative mind returns from that school fully
satisfied.

To describe the separate progress of the work in the case of each of the
six Epeirae mentioned would be a useless repetition: all six employ the
same methods and weave similar webs, save for certain details that shall
be set forth later. I will, therefore, sum up in the aggregate the
particulars supplied by one or other of them.

My subjects, in the first instance, are young and boast but a slight
corporation, very far removed from what it will be in the late autumn.
The belly, the wallet containing the rope-works, hardly exceeds a
peppercorn in bulk. This slenderness on the part of the spinstresses
must not prejudice us against their work: there is no parity between
their skill and their years. The adult Spiders, with their disgraceful
paunches, can do no better.

Moreover, the beginners have one very precious advantage for the
observer: they work by day, work even in the sun, whereas the old ones
weave only at night, at unseasonable hours. The first show us the
secrets of their looms without much difficulty; the others conceal them
from us. Work starts in July, a couple of hours before sunset.

The spinstresses of my enclosure then leave their daytime hiding-places,
select their posts and begin to spin, one here, another there. There are
many of them; we can choose where we please. Let us stop in front of
this one, whom we surprise in the act of laying the foundations of the
structure. Without any appreciable order, she runs about the rosemary-
hedge, from the tip of one branch to another within the limits of some
eighteen inches. Gradually, she puts a thread in position, drawing it
from her wire-mill with the combs attached to her hind-legs. This
preparatory work presents no appearance of a concerted plan. The Spider
comes and goes impetuously, as though at random; she goes up, comes down,
goes up again, dives down again and e