up eagerly.

There are silly ones who just touch the thing with their legs and,
without further enquiries, swathe it in silk after the manner of the
usual game. They even go so far as to dig their fangs into the bait,
following the rule of the preliminary poisoning. Then and then only the
mistake is recognized and the tricked Spider retires and does not come
back, unless it be long afterwards, when she flings the cumbersome object
out of the web.

There are also clever ones. Like the others, these hasten to the red-
woollen lure, which my straw insidiously keeps moving; they come from
their tent among the leaves as readily as from the centre of the web;
they explore it with their palpi and their legs; but, soon perceiving
that the thing is valueless, they are careful not to spend their silk on
useless bonds. My quivering bait does not deceive them. It is flung out
after a brief inspection.

Still, the clever ones, like the silly ones, run even from a distance,
from their leafy ambush. How do they know? Certainly not by sight.
Before recognizing their mistake, they have to hold the object between
their legs and even to nibble at it a little. They are extremely short-
sighted. At a hand's-breadth's distance, the lifeless prey, unable to
shake the web, remains unperceived. Besides, in many cases, the hunting
takes place in the dense darkness of the night, when sight, even if it
were good, would not avail.

If the eyes are insufficient guides, even close at hand, how will it be
when the prey has to be spied from afar! In that case, an intelligence-
apparatus for long-distance work becomes indispensable. We have no
difficulty in detecting the apparatus.

Let us look attentively behind the web of any Epeira with a daytime
hiding-place: we shall see a thread that starts from the centre of the
network, ascends in a slanting line outside the plane of the web and ends
at the ambush where the Spider lurks all day. Except at the central
point, there is no connection between this thread and the rest of the
work, no interweaving with the scaffolding-threads. Free of impediment,
the line runs straight from the centre of the net to the ambush-tent. Its
length averages twenty-two inches. The Angular Epeira, settled high up
in the trees, has shown me some as long as eight or nine feet.

There is no doubt that this slanting line is a foot-bridge which allows
the Spider to repair hurriedly to the web, when summoned by