As the spider’s web is only her snare, she naturally has to have some kind of home, which must be quite near to her place of business. If you look very close and follow one of the strands of the web you will find some little dark cranny where the huntress can hide. If the web is amongst trees it will probably be a leaf she has pulled together with her thread and made into a dark little tunnel out of which she darts when something is caught.
Now before we leave the spiders’ webs you may wonder why you never see them so clearly as they show in the photographs, and I will tell you the reason. You see if the spiders’ nets which are set to catch sharp-eyed insects were always to show as clearly as they do in the pictures, I am afraid they would really starve, for no fly would be silly enough to go into such a bright trap. But sometimes in the autumn, very early in the morning, the dew hangs in tiny beads on the webs, and makes them show up clearly, and then it is that the photographs are taken. If you get up early some still September morning, just about the same time as the sun, and go for a walk in a wood, or even along a country road, you may see the webs with what look like strings of the tiniest pearls on them, and you will find that until the sun has dried up all the little wet pearls, which are of course dewdrops, the poor spider has not a ghost of a chance of catching anything.
But to return to the spider herself. The one you know best is probably the house-spider. It has eight legs and a body rather the shape of a fat egg, with a little round bead of a head. It runs up the walls, sometimes hanging by a thread from the ceiling, and seems very fond of the corners of the room. How glad these house-spiders must be when they get to a dirty untidy house, where they will be safe from the broom. Most of us hate to see cobwebs in our houses, and get rid of them as quickly as we can.
CHAPTER V
THE LITTLE HOUSE-SPIDER
I will tell you about a little house-spider who had a very exciting adventure. She had made a beautiful web in the corner of a bedroom, high up near the ceiling. One day her sensitive hairs told her there was some sort of disturbance in the room, and looking down from her web she saw all the furniture being moved out. The curtains and rugs had gone and the bed was pushed up into a corner. Then, to her dismay, a huge hairy monster came rushing up the wall. Of course, it was only a broom, but the poor little spider was so terrified she thought it was alive. It came nearer and nearer, and all at once there was a terrific rush and swish right up the wall where she lived, and web and spider disappeared. It was very alarming, but you will be glad to hear that the little spider was not killed but only stunned; and as soon as she came to her senses, she found herself right in the middle of the broom. She hung on and kept quite still, and soon the servants went into the kitchen to have some lunch and the broom was stood up against the wall.
Now was the little spider’s chance to escape, and out she popped. The coast seemed clear, so she scuttled up the wall and rested on the top of the door. Spiders haven’t good sight, so she couldn’t see much of the kitchen, but what she did see looked nice, and she thought it a much more interesting place than a bedroom, besides there were some flies about, so she determined to spin another web. No sooner had she begun when there was a crash like an earthquake. “Will horrors never cease?” thought the spider. It was really only the slamming of the door, but it so startled her that she fell and dropped on to the shoulder of some one who had just come in.
