For it appears to be only the female who spins a web. The big-bodied spider, so industriously occupied in every gap of the thicket, is always the female, though the male is never far off. You are sure to find him peering out from under one of the adjacent leaves, or treading timidly on the circumference of the web, trying to attract the attention, and thereafter, perhaps, the regard of its maker. Spider nets and their weavers have, I think, never been given quite their place in the world of wonders. As far as human profit is concerned, spiders are useless things; and have therefore missed, because, from that standpoint, they have not merited, popular favour. But no doubt their ingenuity as craftswomen stands very nearly on a level with that of the worker honey-bee. The waxen comb of the bee, whose perfection is due to the combined arts of engineer, mason, and geometrician, is very little superior in design and carrying-out to the spider’s web. On these still, grey autumn mornings, the tendency of the eye is not to wander far afield, but to concern itself with the little things of the wayside close at hand; and so, more than at any other time of year, perhaps, the spiders and their ways come in for narrow scrutiny. And here is something, in the first loving investigation of which the uninformed, unread observer is much to be envied. He notices in the outset that these fine silken snares, hung by the spiders in the hedgerows, are of two kinds—the one placed vertically across a gap in the surface of the thicket; the other placed horizontally, closing up some shaft or upward passage-way in the heart of the green bush. The vertical net is seen to be composed of a number of threads radiating from a common centre, and upon these threads an ever-increasing spiral line has been laid, forming a regular, meshed net. But the horizontal web has none of this geometric neatness. It is a mere expanse of fine tissue irregularly woven into a sort of crazy pattern, and slung hammock fashion, completely closing the chimney-like hollow wherein it has been made. From a view of the finished webs, two other facts will be noted—the vertical net is supported only by lines springing from its circumference, and the spider sits at its centre in front; the horizontal net is suspended by numberless fine lines attached at all points in its upper surface, while the spider clings to the under side as she lies in wait for her prey.