e resting-
floor and the spokes, I pull and root up the spiral, which dangles in
tatters. With its snaring-threads ruined, the net is useless; no passing
Moth would allow herself to be caught. Now what does the Epeira do in
the face of this disaster? Nothing at all. Motionless on her resting-
floor, which I have left intact, she awaits the capture of the game; she
awaits it all night in vain on her impotent web. In the morning, I find
the snare as I left it. Necessity, the mother of invention, has not
prompted the Spider to make a slight repair in her ruined toils.

Possibly this is asking too much of her resources. The silk-glands may
be exhausted after the laying of the great spiral; and to repeat the same
expenditure immediately is out of the question. I want a case wherein
there could be no appeal to any such exhaustion. I obtain it, thanks to
my assiduity.

While I am watching the rolling of the spiral, a head of game rushes fun
tilt into the unfinished snare. The Epeira interrupts her work, hurries
to the giddy-pate, swathes him and takes her fill of him where he lies.
During the struggle, a section of the web has torn under the weaver's
very eyes. A great gap endangers the satisfactory working of the net.
What will the spider do in the presence of this grievous rent?

Now or never is the time to repair the broken threads: the accident has
happened this very moment, between the animal's legs; it is certainly
known and, moreover, the rope-works are in full swing. This time there
is no question of the exhaustion of the silk-warehouse.

Well, under these conditions, so favourable to darning, the Epeira does
no mending at all. She flings aside her prey, after taking a few sips at
it, and resumes her spiral at the point where she interrupted it to
attack the Moth. The torn part remains as it is. The machine-shuttle in
our looms does not revert to the spoiled fabric; even so with the Spider
working at her web.

And this is no case of distraction, of individual carelessness; all the
large spinstresses suffer from a similar incapacity for patching. The
Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira are noteworthy in this respect. The
Angular Epeira remakes her web nearly every evening; the other two
reconstruct theirs only very seldom and use them even when extremely
dilapidated. They go on hunting with shapeless rags. Before they bring
themselves to weave a new web, the old one has to be ruined beyond
recogni