THE SPIDER AND HER WEB

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 150, 24 March 1928, Page 22

THE SPIDER AND HER WEB

The web of the common spider ' is one of the most familiar of sights; a fact which is apt to blind us to the beauty of its construction, and also t° its uniqueness.-. The only.’thing which can compare with it in any -way is the net with which the caddisworms of fresh-water ponds and streams catch their food. It is the female spider (writes “Zoologist” in “T.P.’s Weekly”) which makes the web and tends it removing fragments which, blow into it, and bearing away the flies which become entangled in it. The threads which form the web are manufactured in a series of little glands known as spinnerets, which open near the hind end of the body of the female. They consist of a gummy material, which, when dravn out, forms an extremely fine thread which sets hard.in the air. The first essential in the formation of the web is to draw the outline. To do this the famale sho '3 on' a thread on to a support /hich she carrie on her hind feet. She then tajies the thread, still fresh and sticky, to some con- , venient leaf or stick, where she securely fastens it, .drawing it tight with’ her claws. She then releases her hold and drops straight downwards, the thread streams out .behind her. and.aa.forms'the. first vei<. tical side of the web. The next things she does are to construct a> diagonal thread from corner to cor-.

ner, to draw this tight, and then to proceed to the centre of it, from which she makes the radial threads which form the firm foundation of the web. When all the spokes of the wheel are finished, she returns again to the centre, and, gradually working outwards, makes a loose, temporary spiral, which serves to hold the web together while she forms the permanent encircling threads. These are made of the second type of silk, which is much more sticky than the first, for it is they which entangle the prey. Last of all, the temporary scaffolding is cut away and the web is completed, the whole process having taken no 'longer than half an hour. The spider now moves to one side, but her whole attention remains focussed on the web, on the edge of which her feet rest, and by means of which she feels every vibration —for, in spite of- the possession of. eight eyes, she .is. very sbortsightea—-tak-ing appropriation action according to the nature of the vibration. As soon as a fly is caught in the web, the waiting spider runs towards it and envelopes it in her third, and stickiest, kind of silk by running round and round it. The prey is then killed by the poison which she injects into it and then the spider sucks out the soft flesh and blood "from' within. Finally she’casts’out the” empty-skim and cleans up the web ready for the next victim.