their counter-agents, produces an empty space, wide enough
for three fingers to pass through.

The Spider retreats to her cable and looks on without being greatly
frightened. When I have done, she quietly returns. She takes her stand
on one of the halves, at the spot which was the centre of the original
orb; but, as her legs find no footing on one side, she soon realizes that
the snare is defective. Thereupon, two threads are stretched across the
breach, two threads, no more; the legs that lacked a foothold spread
across them; and henceforth the Epeira moves no more, devoting her
attention to the incidents of the chase.

When I saw those two threads laid, joining the edges of the rent, I began
to hope that I was to witness a mending-process:

'The Spider,' said I to myself, 'will increase the number of those cross-
threads from end to end of the breach; and, though the added piece may
not match the rest of the work, at least it will fill the gap and the
continuous sheet will be of the same use practically as the regular web.'

The reality did not answer to my expectation. The spinstress made no
further endeavour all night. She hunted with her riven net, for what it
was worth; for I found the web next morning in the same condition wherein
I had left it on the night before. There had been no mending of any
kind.

The two threads stretched across the breach even must not be taken for an
attempt at repairing. Finding no foothold for her legs on one side, the
Spider went to look into the state of things and, in so doing, crossed
the rent. In going and returning, she left a thread, as is the custom
with all the Epeirae when walking. It was not a deliberate mending, but
the mere result of an uneasy change of place.

Perhaps the subject of my experiment thought it unnecessary to go to
fresh trouble and expense, for the web can serve quite well as it is,
after my scissor-cut: the two halves together represent the original
snaring-surface. All that the Spider, seated in a central position, need
do is to find the requisite support for her spread legs. The two threads
stretched from side to side of the cleft supply her with this, or nearly.
My mischief did not go far enough. Let us devise something better.

Next day, the web is renewed, after the old one has been swallowed. When
the work is done and the Epeira seated motionless at her central post, I
take a straw and, wielding it dexterously, so as to respect th