USE OF SPIDER’S SILK.
Various attempts have been made to use the silk of spiders, and chiefly that of the large round-web spiders, for practical purposes, either by carding the cocoons, or by drawing the thread directly from the spider. The latest experiments and plans for this purpose are those of Professor Wilder in “The Galaxy,” vol. viii. He shows how Nephila plumipes might be raised in large numbers, each spider kept by herself in a wire ring surrounded by water, fed with flies bred for the purpose from old meat, and milked every day of their thread. Each cocoon of this spider contains from five hundred to a thousand eggs. The young live together for two or three weeks, spin a web in common, and eat one another, or any small insects that come in their way. Then they begin to scatter, and each builds her own web; so that from this time they must be kept separate, or they would eat one another. Every day or two, each spider should be taken down, put into a pair of stocks, and the thread pulled out till it stops coming. In this way Wilder thinks an ounce of thread could be got from each spider during the summer. The thread is from a seven-thousandth to a four-thousandth of an inch thick, and much smoother and more brightly colored, as well as finer, than that of the silk-worm. Several threads would have to be twisted together to get one of manageable size. The principal difficulties are the space needed for keeping each spider by herself, and the amount of labor needed to provide them with living insects for food, and to draw out the silk, which would make it too expensive to use.