Fig. 171.—Structure of a spider's web.
Fig. 172.—Spider and its web or trap.
Fig. 173.—Highly magnified poison fang of spider.
Fig. 174.—Biting mandibles of a spider.
By my door is a huge spider similar to the one shown in Figure 172. It has a beautiful web which covers a space two feet square, but the spider rarely occupies it. Near by it has a covering formed of a leaf of a fern which it has pulled down each side and fastened, forming a little room just the size of its body. Wondering how the spider would discover a victim caught in the web, I examined it carefully, and then placed a grasshopper in the web. Instantly the spider noted the disturbance, having what to all intents and purposes was a private telephone line. This was a single guy line leading from the center of the web to its retreat, where one of the spider's claws rested upon it, holding it, so that the slightest swaying of the web lifted its foot. When an insect became entangled, the spider darted at it, and by skillful manipulation of its hind pair of legs reeled off its silken cord and attached it to the victim at every point, in a short time literally binding it in a roll. If it was likely to escape, the spider would bite it, using its poison fang (Fig. 173), which paralyzed it. The biting mandibles (Fig. 174) are terrible weapons, from which there is no escape. The inner jaws (Fig. 175) are equally sharp and effective. The eyes of the spider are very brilliant, and in a bright light can be seen to gleam and glisten like points of steel or fire. They are minute dots, seen just above the mandibles.
