Web (spider)

“ The spider’s web is a compensating contrivance, of a very ingenious character. This creature is made to feed on flies; yet how was it to catch them, for it had no wings? This might seem to be a case of difficulty, but the web is a net, and the spider is not only taught how to weave it, but his body furnishes the thread! How ingenious, how wonderful, how multiplied, are the resources of the God of Nature!
In many species of insects, the eye is fixed, and cannot be turned in its socket. ”

“ Even though it should be adhering to the very edge of its web, the insect always runs instantly to the middle, where it can most effectually shake the web, and so successfully entangle its prey. When the web is torn, the spider immediately sets about repairing it, and that so neatly, that nothing like patching can ever be seen. The spider lies in wait even for the young of 248 the lizard, and after enveloping the head of the animal, bites its lips; a sight by no means unworthy of the amphitheatre itself, when it is one’s good fortune to witness it. ”

“ If I had to undergo one of those transformations we read about in fairy tales, and were to be turned into a spider, I should very much wish to be one of the wandering spiders, and not a web-maker. Both in houses and out of doors, things go badly with spiders' webs and their occupiers; they are constantly disturbed, and if they get away alive, their work has to be done over again. But a spider that does not make a web is usually suffered to go on his way undisturbed; sometimes, indeed, the hunting spiders are scarcely recognised as spiders, and pass for some other kind of insect. ”

“ Our own common garden or geometric spider is as good a web-spinner, perhaps, as any that exists, or, if not, it is at least as good as any that I can think of at the moment. Everyone is familiar with the general appearance of the web and the mathematical regularity of its outline, whilst all who have watched its construction must have been astonished at the skill displayed by the spider, both in the weaving and placing of it. ”

“ As the spider’s web is only her snare, she naturally has to have some kind of home, which must be quite near to her place of business. If you look very close and follow one of the strands of the web you will find some little dark cranny where the huntress can hide. If the web is amongst trees it will probably be a leaf she has pulled together with her thread and made into a dark little tunnel out of which she darts when something is caught. ”

“ Among the web-Spiders, I have seen Hymenoptera most often eaten by the curious little Sociable Spider, which lives in societies, forming a thickly felted nest varying in size from that of a cricket-ball to a man's head, and traversed throughout by intersecting galleries, being surrounded on all sides by an irregular and sometimes far-reaching snare. In this case, however, the Wasp is caught in the highly glutinous web during the day, and struggles on till sundown, when at last the Spiders emerge ”

“ Her web is like that of the other weaving Spiders. Straight threads run out like spokes of a wheel from a central point. Over these runs a continuous spiral thread, forming chords, or cross-bars, from the center to the circumference. It is magnificently large and magnificently symmetrical.
In the lower part of the web, starting from the center, a thick wide ribbon descends zigzag-wise across the spokes. This is the Spider’s trademark, the way she signs her work of art. Also, the strong silk zigzag gives greater firmness to the web. ”

“ Insects flying through the web strike the sticky threads and, trying to free themselves, fall against others. The spider at the center of the web feels the movements of the insect and goes toward it by the nearest ray and, drawing out silk from the spinnerets, throws it around the insect until it is tied fast. Adult male Epeiridæ are seldom seen in webs of their own, but some of them do occasionally make webs. ”

“ Besides, their web, a short-lived work whereof hardly a trace remains on the morrow, does not allow of this kind of industry. It is no use going to the expense of a signalling-apparatus for a ruined snare wherein nothing can now be caught. Only the old Spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, are warned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the web.
To save herself from keeping a close watch that would degenerate into drudgery and to remain alive to events even when resting, with her back turned on the net, the ambushed Spider always has her foot upon the telegraph-wire. ”

“ It usually stands in the most sheltered part of the web, where a part of it is more closely woven than the rest, but not enough so to conceal the spider. It occasionally makes the web in an open place where there is no shelter above, and then it sometimes carries a piece of leaf into the web and hides under it, as is the usual habit with some allied species. The webs of the young are usually more regular in form than those of adults (figs. 256, 257) . A male and female often occupy the same web for a long time. ”

“ The Spider knows right well; I am in the dark. Mornings are spent in fruitless searches. In vain I ransack the bushes that carry the webs: I never find aught that realizes my hopes.
I learn the secret at last. I chance upon a web which, though deserted, is not yet dilapidated, proving that it has been but lately quitted. Instead of hunting in the brushwood whereon it rests, let us inspect the neighbourhood, to a distance of a few paces. If these contain a low, thick cluster, the nest is there, hidden from the eye. ”

“ The smaller kind of wolf-spider does not make a web, but the larger ones make holes in the earth, and spread their nets at the narrow entrance. A third kind is remarkable for the skill which it displays in its operations. These spin a large web, the creature having in itself a certain faculty of secreting a peculiar sort of woolly substance. How steadily does it work with its claws, how beautifully rounded and how equal are the threads as it forms its web, while it employs the weight of its body as an equipoise! ”

“ If something comes meanwhile into the net, the spider at first makes for the centre, and then goes back to its entangled prey as from a fixed starting point. If any one injures a portion of the web, it recommences weaving at sunrise or at sunset, because it is chiefly at these periods that creatures are caught in the web. It is the female that does the weaving and the hunting, but the male takes a share of the booty captured. ”

“ To the web is attached a trap-line which when drawn taut holds the snare stretched and tight, and when relaxed loosens the whole structure so that the threads fall together. When an insect strikes the web the spider loosens his hold of the trap-line, thus enveloping the victim in a tangle of threads which would otherwise not come into contact with it. Spiders which spin no snare are dependent for capturing prey for the most part upon their quickness or powers of lying concealed. ”

“ While I am watching the rolling of the spiral, a head of game rushes full tilt into the unfinished snare. The Epeira interrupts her work, hurries to the giddy-pate, swathes him and takes her fill of him where he lies. During the struggle, a section of the web has torn under the weaver's very eyes. A great gap endangers the satisfactory working of the net. What will the spider do in the presence of this grievous rent? ”

“ Rightly considered, a Spider's web is a most curious as well as a most beautiful thing. When we were children, the majority of us supposed that the Spider's web was pulled out of its mouth, and that the little insect had a large reel of the stuff in his stomach, and that he could almost instantly add feet, yards, or rods to the roll. ”

“ I can still see him sitting on the end of the table in my cell, which was fastened with iron clamps to the wall, jerking his long, thin legs, and flourishing his long, thin arms, like a great spider who finds a broken mesh in his web. It was probably a hard task for so learned a spider, into whose web a clumsy blue-bottle had blundered and was floundering about in his awkward way, to extricate him with scientific nicety. And now for the first time I began to find out how far-spreading this web was, and how many flies, besides myself, were entangled in its meshes. ”

“ Some species build zigzag white coloured threads in their webs which are visible to birds who avoid flying through the webs and damaging them.
The male spider is smaller than the female, and is thus liable to be eaten by his mate. So, the male uses many tactics to prevent his being devoured by his mate. In some cases the male drums or pulls at the strings of the web in a special code to announce that he is not a prey or an enemy, but a sexual object.
Some spiders offer their mate a gift such as a juicy fly, wrapped in silk. ”

“ They use the silk for making webs, for cocoons for the eggs, nests, and in some cases for parachutes for flying. Each species makes its own type of web.
Spiders breathe by means of sacks—so-called lungs—on the lower side of the abdomen.
Our common house spider is the same as that of Europe; the largest species we see is the one found occasionally in banana bunches. ”

“ There, taking the dead fly on his feet—much as a juggler plays with a ball upon his toes—the spider rolls it round and round, enveloping it in a cocoon of web, and finally hangs up his game head uppermost, and resumes his own position head downwards. Another spider wraps his prey in a cocoon by spinning himself and the fly together round and round. At the end of September or beginning of October acres of furze may be seen covered with web in the morning, when the dew deposited upon it renders it visible. As the sun dries up the dew the web is no longer seen. ”

“ In seeking its prey it watches in the middle of its web. When anything falls into the web and the centre is moved, the spider surrounds and encloses it in a web, until it is rendered powerless, and then takes it up and carries it to her store. ”

“ Why does the spider sometimes make a closely spun web and sit in the very center of its nest, and why does it sometimes come out of its nest and spin a new web?
The spider makes its web according as the weather is at the time, and as it is going to be. By examining its web one can predict what the weather will be; if the spider hides itself away deep down in its nest and does not come out, it means rain. If it emerges from its nest and spins new threads, it means that it will be fine. ”

“ Not the ordinary single web which we all know, but a broad band which represents the many hundreds of strands usually combined in the single thread, but now permitted to issue singly from the spinnerets. White speaks of the spider "shooting out" the web, and such is the apparent feat, but doubtless the breeze assists in the operation. It is certainly taking good care of this floating banner from the loom of this little spinner upon our finger-tip. Longer and longer it grows. ”

“ On every sunny morning monster spiders ran out from the holes and angles of the weir-frame, and spun webs across and across the straddling iron legs below the footbridge, right down to the lowered surface of the water, which had so sunk that each spider had at least four feet more of web than he could have reckoned upon before and waxed fat on the produce of the added superficies of enmeshed and immolated flies. ”

“ Everywhere is activity and bustle, and a loud hum comes up out of that vast hole from three or four thousand human beings engaged at work below.
The men themselves look like so many flies as they dig away at the blue soil, and the thousands of wire ropes extending from every claim to the depositing boxes round the edge have the appearance of a huge spider’s web, while the buckets perpetually descending empty and ascending full might well represent the giant spiders. ”

“ Picking himself up, he no sooner starts again when he finds his face in the middle of a strong web which some huge-bodied spider has been laboriously constructing. However, clearing away the web from his features, he struggles along until coming to the fallen trunk of some giant of the forest which obstructs his path, he with all confidence plants his foot firmly on it and sinks knee-deep into rotten wood. ”

“ These webs are exceedingly elastic, for they have to resist the power of the wind. When the web has been long built, and has become stretched, they will sometimes go and fetch a little piece of wood, which they hang by a thread, and haul it to a spot where they think it will steady their structure.
The threads of spiders are produced from an organ called the "spinneret," which is placed at the extremity of the body. The spinnerets are arranged in pairs, and are four, six, or eight in number. [105]
The spider generally works at its web with its head down, lowering itself by its thread. ”

“ The spider mentioned above as devouring her lover was the common garden or geometric one, as it is sometimes called, which in England is the largest example of a web-spinner. In other parts of the world, however, web-spinning spiders attain to a much larger size, and their webs, of course, are in proportion. The largest, perhaps, are found in Madagascar, and the gigantic fabrics which many of these weave are curiously utilised by smaller spiders of a parasitic disposition, who spin their own little webs between the thick strands of those of their hosts. ”

“ Those which radiate from the centre to the circumference are strong and smooth, while those which unite them are much slighter, and are covered with tiny globules set at regular intervals. When the web is newly spun, these globules are found to be nearly as tenacious as birdlime, and it is by these means that an insect which falls into the web is arrested,{101} and cannot extricate itself until the spider can seize it. After awhile the globules become dry, refuse to perform their office, and then the spider has to construct another web. ”