employed, draw the thread,
seize it in their combs and apply it to the work, while the tip of the
abdomen sways methodically to and fro.

In this way, the silken fibre is distributed in an even zigzag, of almost
geometrical precision and comparable with that of the cotton thread which
the machines in our factories roll so neatly into balls. And this is
repeated all over the surface of the work, for the Spider shifts her
position a little at every moment.

At fairly frequent intervals, the tip of the abdomen is lifted to the
mouth of the balloon; and then the spinnerets really touch the fringed
edge. The length of contact is even considerable. We find, therefore,
that the thread is stuck in this star-shaped fringe, the foundation of
the building and the crux of the whole, while every elsewhere it is
simply laid on, in a manner determined by the movements of the hind-legs.
If we wished to unwind the work, the thread would break at the margin; at
any other point, it would unroll.

The Epeira ends her web with a dead-white, angular flourish; she ends her
nest with brown mouldings, which run down, irregularly, from the marginal
junction to the bulging middle. For this purpose, she makes use, for the
third time, of a different silk; she now produces silk of a dark hue,
varying from russet to black. The spinnerets distribute the material
with a wide longitudinal swing, from pole to pole; and the hind-legs
apply it in capricious ribbons. When this is done, the work is finished.
The Spider moves away with slow strides, without giving a glance at the
bag. The rest does not interest her: time and the sun will see to it.

She felt her hour at hand and came down from her web. Near by, in the
rank grass, she wove the tabernacle of her offspring and, in so doing,
drained her resources. To resume her hunting-post, to return to her web
would be useless to her: she has not the wherewithal to bind the prey.
Besides, the fine appetite of former days has gone. Withered and
languid, she drags out her existence for a few days and, at last, dies.
This is how things happen in my cages; this is how they must happen in
the brushwood.

The Silky Epeira (_Epeira sericea_, OLIV.) excels the Banded Epeira in
the manufacture of big hunting-nets, but she is less gifted in the art of
nest-building. She gives her nest the inelegant form of an obtuse cone.
The opening of this pocket is very wide and is scalloped into lobes by
which the ed