e brilliant light of
the sun does not always enable us to discern them.

We must not let all the climbers be stranded on the ceiling, an
inhospitable region where most of them will doubtless perish, being
unable to produce a second thread before they have had a meal. I open
the window. A current of lukewarm air, coming from the chafing-dish,
escapes through the top. Dandelion-plumes, taking that direction, tell
me so. The wafting threads cannot fail to be carried by this flow of air
and to lengthen out in the open, where a light breeze is blowing.

I take a pair of sharp scissors and, without shaking the threads, cut a
few that are just visible at the base, where they are thickened with an
added strand. The result of this operation is marvellous. Hanging to
the flying-rope, which is borne on the wind outside, the Spider passes
through the window, suddenly flies off and disappears. An easy way of
travelling, if the conveyance possessed a rudder that allowed the
passenger to land where he pleases! But the little things are at the
mercy of the winds: where will they alight? Hundreds, thousands of yards
away, perhaps. Let us wish them a prosperous journey.

The problem of dissemination is now solved. What would happen if
matters, instead of being brought about by my wiles, took place in the
open fields? The answer is obvious. The young Spiders, born acrobats
and rope-walkers, climb to the top of a branch so as to find sufficient
space below them to unfurl their apparatus. Here, each draws from her
rope-factory a thread which she abandons to the eddies of the air. Gently
raised by the currents that ascend from the ground warmed by the sun,
this thread wafts upwards, floats, undulates, makes for its point of
contact. At last, it breaks and vanishes in the distance, carrying the
spinstress hanging to it.

The Epeira with the three white crosses, the Spider who has supplied us
with these first data concerning the process of dissemination, is endowed
with a moderate maternal industry. As a receptacle for the eggs, she
weaves a mere pill of silk. Her work is modest indeed beside the Banded
Epeira's balloons. I looked to these to supply me with fuller documents.
I had laid up a store by rearing some mothers during the autumn. So that
nothing of importance might escape me, I divided my stock of balloons,
most of which were woven before my eyes, into two sections. One half
remained in my study, under a wire-g