t of the
Spiders of the South. On her fat belly, a mighty silk-warehouse nearly
as large as a hazel-nut, are alternate yellow, black and silver sashes,
to which she owes her epithet of Banded. Around that portly abdomen, the
eight long legs, with their dark- and pale-brown rings, radiate like
spokes.

Any small prey suits her; and, as long as she can find supports for her
web, she settles wherever the Locust hops, wherever the Fly hovers,
wherever the Dragon-fly dances or the Butterfly flits. As a rule,
because of the greater abundance of game, she spreads her toils across
some brooklet, from bank to bank among the rushes. She also stretches
them, but not assiduously, in the thickets of evergreen oak, on the
slopes with the scrubby greenswards, dear to the Grasshoppers.

Her hunting-weapon is a large upright web, whose outer boundary, which
varies according to the disposition of the ground, is fastened to the
neighbouring branches by a number of moorings. The structure is that
adopted by the other weaving Spiders. Straight threads radiate at equal
intervals from a central point. Over this framework runs a continuous
spiral thread, forming chords, or cross-bars, from the centre to the
circumference. It is magnificently large and magnificently symmetrical.

In the lower part of the web, starting from the centre, a wide opaque
ribbon descends zigzag-wise across the radii. This is the Epeira's trade-
mark, the flourish of an artist initialling his creation. '_Fecit_ So-
and-so,' she seems to say, when giving the last throw of the shuttle to
her handiwork.

That the Spider feels satisfied when, after passing and repassing from
spoke to spoke, she finishes her spiral, is beyond a doubt: the work
achieved ensures her food for a few days to come. But, in this
particular case, the vanity of the spinstress has naught to say to the
matter: the strong silk zigzag is added to impart greater firmness to the
web.

Increased resistance is not superfluous, for the net is sometimes exposed
to severe tests. The Epeira cannot pick and choose her prizes. Seated
motionless in the centre of her web, her eight legs wide-spread to feel
the shaking of the network in any direction, she waits for what luck will
bring her: now some giddy weakling unable to control its flight, anon
some powerful prey rushing headlong with a reckless bound.

The Locust in particular, the fiery Locust, who releases the spring of
his long shanks at