THE SPIDER AND HER WEB

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2148, 24 April 1928, Page 8

THE SPIDER AND HER WEB

The web of the common spider is one of the most popular of sights; a fact which is apt to blind up to the beauty of its construction, and also to 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 opqn near the hind end of the body of the female. They consist of gummy material, which, when drawn ( out, forms an extremely fine thread which sets hard in air. The first essential in the formation of the web is to draw the outline. To do this the female shoots a thread on to a support which she carries on he,r hind feet. She then takes the thread, still fresh and sticky, to some convenient leaf or stick, where she securely fastens it, drawing it tight with her claws. She the releases her 'hold and drops straight downwards, the thread streams out behind her and so forms the first vertical side of the web. The next things she does are to construct a diagonal thread from corner to - corner, and 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, graudally working outwards makes a loose, temporary spiral, which serves to hold the web together while she forms the permanent encircling threads. These are made 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 short-sighted—taking 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 she injects into it, and then the spider, sucks out the soft flesh and blood from within. Finally she casts out the empty skin and cleans up the web ready 1 for the next victim.