It may not be inopportune to recall to the minds of our readers a somewhat neglected silk-source, which may perhaps at some future period form a profitable commercial undertaking. It is unnecessary to expatiate upon the beauty of the gossamer spun by the _Aranea diadema_, or common Garden spider, as the fairy-like tracery must be familiar to every one who has wandered through the woods in autumn, when the gauzy films festooned between and over the bushes were rendered prominent through saturation with dew or a sprinkling of hoar-frost. The thread produced by this little creature is estimated to be many times finer than the most attenuated filament of the well-known silkworm of Europe, the _Bombyx mori_; consequently, as may be imagined, the difficulty of obtaining such silk is so great that, except for land-surveying purposes, the web of spiders as a class has not been permanently utilised. For the latter object, the plan adopted by our surveying instrument makers[1] in order to secure small supplies of spider’s line, is remarkably simple, and affords an illustration of how closely instinct in the lower creation sometimes approaches reasoning intelligence in the higher. Having caught the selected spider, it is immediately tossed backwards and forwards from hand to hand of the operator, until the impulse of self-preservation induces the emission of its thread. Meanwhile, a wire, bent double like a hairpin—the distance between the prongs being slightly greater than the diameter of the telescope to be fitted—is at hand to receive the silk. As soon as the filament appears, the end is attached to the wire and the spider dropped, when it immediately emits its thread with great rapidity, in the hope of reaching the ground and escaping. This is frustrated by a dexterous revolution of the extemporised reel, which winds up the line as fast as it is produced, until the spider’s store of silk is exhausted. It is then allowed its liberty; and a touch of gum on each prong secures the silk in convenient lengths for future use.