The New Hampshire Gazette

THE GEOMETRIC SPIDER.—The geometric, or net-working spider, is well known, as almost every bush and tree in the gardens and hedge rows, often has one or more of their nests stretched out, in a vertical position, between their adjacent branches. But the method they pursue in building their nests is not, we apprehend, quite so familiar to some of our readers.

The chief care of the geometric spider is to form a cable of sufficient strength to bear the net she means to hang upon it; and, after throwing out a floating line as above described, when it catches properly, she doubles and redoubles it with additional threads. On trying its strength, she is not contented with the test of pulling it with her legs, but drops herself down several feet from various points of it, as we have often seen, swinging and bobbing with the whole weight of her body. She proceeds in a similar manner with the rest of the frame work of her wheel-shaped net; and it may be remarked that some of the ends of these lines are not simple, but in form of a Y, giving her the additional security of two attachments instead of one.

In constructing the body of the net, the most remarkable circumstance is her using her limbs as a measure, to regulate the distances of her radii, or wheel spokes, and the circular meshes interweaved into them. These are consequently always proportional to the size of the spider. She often takes up her station in the centre, but not always, though it is so said by inaccurate writers: for she as frequently lurks in a little chamber constructed under a leaf or other shelter at the corner of her web, ready to dart down upon whatever prey may be entangled in the net. The centre of the net is said also to be composed of more viscous materials than its suspensory lines—a circumstance alleged to be proved by the former appearing under the microscope studded with globules of gum. We have not been able to verify this distinction, having seen the suspensory lines as often studded in this manner as those in the centre.