SPIDER SILK STOCKINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18458, 23 July 1923, Page 12

SPIDER SILK STOCKINGS.

"' There has: been talk in France of reviving the manufacture of gossamer silk :,', stockings' from the ' silk spiders, writes -' Bassett Digby, :F.R.G.S.,.in an exchange. ;.; There used to be a little factory at Languedoc which wove spider silk '• into the most delicate featherweight gloves and stockings, but it failed on account of the difficulty of rearing and farming enough spiders and attending to them. You can't keen spiders in big pens, like rabbits and poultry and the larvae of Bornbyx-irfori (the "silkworm.") They fight and eat each other unless given privacy and plenty of elbow room, and to keep feeding and tending tens of thous- ... ands of spiders, each in its own " flat," ; -means a high wage bill for labour. Though the making of stockings from r spider silk has been suspended, the silk has never ceased to be a necessity to the makers of theodolites and other surveying instruments.. for taking observations. I* .' these instruments two lines of spidur silk crosti the centre of the glass, at, right . angles. "'■"."■,.; ' The method usually employed is first to .... toss t/he surprised spider from hand to hand. Thus alarmed it begins to emit a j'; thread of its silk, preparatory to trying ;to escape by dropping. The winder then ; twirls a kind of wide-pronged hairpin, of ..slightly more than the width wanted for ,;'. equipping the batch of instruments,, the : • manufacture of which is in handj, and .drops the spider. Simultaneously he turns the " hairpin '* over and over, so ■ that it winds up the flowing silks. '• The spider cannot understand, no doubt '.why it takes such a long time to reach' 'i* the ground, but by the time it has lowered i-M itself -by several hundred feet of silk, all >; of which is steadily and speedily wound ;'•/-: on to the " hairpin," it at last finds a J footing on the floor and is allowed to run .;......;.,;:. '.:■;■:•■'.:;; '-■■'.>■ "' : ,v- --■