a live Epeira. Brought just as it
is into contact with the lime-threads, it does not stick to them any
more than to the neutral cords, whether spokes or part of the
framework. We were entitled to expect this, judging by the Spider's
general immunity.

But here is something that wholly alters the result. I put the leg to
soak for a quarter of an hour in disulphide of carbon, the best solvent
of fatty matters. I wash it carefully with a brush dipped in the same
fluid. When this washing is finished, the leg sticks to the
snaring-thread quite easily and adheres to it just as well as anything
else would, the unoiled straw, for instance.

Did I guess aright when I judged that it was a fatty substance that
preserved the Epeira from the snares of her sticky Catherine-wheel? The
action of the carbon-disulphide seems to say yes. Besides, there is no
reason why a substance of this kind, which plays so frequent a part in
animal economy, should not coat the Spider very slightly by the mere
act of perspiration. We used to rub our fingers with a little oil
before handling the twigs in which the Goldfinch was to be caught; even
so the Epeira varnishes herself with a special sweat, to operate on any
part of her web without fear of the lime-threads.

However, an unduly protracted stay on the sticky threads would have its
drawbacks. In the long run, continual contact with those threads might
produce a certain adhesion and inconvenience to the Spider, who must
preserve all her agility in order to rush upon the prey before it can
release itself. For this reason, gummy threads are never used in
building the post of interminable waiting.

It is only on her resting-floor that the Epeira sits, motionless and
with her eight legs outspread, ready to mark the least quiver in the
net. It is here, again, that she takes her meals, often long-drawn out,
when the joint is a substantial one; it is hither that, after trussing
and nibbling it, she drags her prey at the end of a thread, to consume
it at her ease on a non-viscous mat. As a hunting-post and refectory,
the Epeira has contrived a central space, free from glue.

As for the glue itself, it is hardly possible to study its chemical
properties, because the quantity is so slight. The microscope shows it
trickling from the broken threads in the form of a transparent and more
or less granular streak. The following experiment will tell us more
about it.

With a sheet of glass passed across the