d wonderful a sight, with
its geometrical regularity and its beaded drops, that if it were
produced by a rare creature from Madagascar or the Cape, in the
insect-house at the Zoo, all the world, I'm convinced, would rush to
look at it as a nine-days' wonder. But since it's only the trap of the
common English garden spider, why, we all pass it by without deigning
even to glance at it.

At night my eight-legged friends slept always in their own homes or
nests under shelter of the rose-leaves. But during the day they
alternated between the nest and the centre of the web, which last
seemed to serve them as a convenient station where they waited for
their prey, standing head downward with legs wide spread on the rays,
on the look-out for incidents. Whether at the centre or in the nest,
however, they kept their feet constantly on the watch for any
disturbance on the webs; and the instant any unhappy little fly got
entangled in their meshes, the ever-watchful spider was out like a
flash of lightning, and down at once in full force upon that incautious
intruder. I was convinced after many observations that it is by touch
alone the spider recognizes the presence of prey in its web, and that
it hardly derives any indications worth speaking of from its numerous
little eyes, at least as regards the arrival of booty. If a very big
insect has got into the web, then a relatively large volume of
disturbance is propagated along the telegraphic wire that runs from the
snare to the house, or from the circumference to the centre; if a small
one, then a slight disturbance; and the spider rushes out accordingly,
either with an air of caution or of ferocious triumph.

Supposing the booty in hand was a tiny fly, then Lucy or Eliza would
jump upon it at once with that strange access of apparently personal
animosity with seems in some mysterious way a characteristic of all
hunting carnivorous animals. She would then carelessly wind a thread or
two about it, in a perfunctory way, bury her jaws in its body, and in
less than half a minute suck out its juices to the last drop, leaving
the empty shell unhurt, like a dry skeleton or the slough of a
dragon-fly larva. But when wasps or other large and dangerous insects
got entangled in the webs, the hunters proceeded with far greater
caution. Lucy, indeed, who was a decided coward, would stand and look
anxiously at the doubtful intruder for several seconds, feeling the web
with her claws, and running