Until recently it was supposed that the deposition of these beads upon the spiral line was a subsequent operation, and, in view of their vast numbers and regularity, the circumstance naturally excited great wonder and admiration. Blackwall[273] estimated that, in a fourteen-inch net of _Epeira cornuta_, there were at least 120,000 viscid globules, and yet he found that its construction occupied only about forty minutes! The feat, from his point of view, must be allowed to be rather startling. As a matter of fact, the thread, on being slowly drawn out, is uniformly coated with viscid matter which _afterwards_ arranges itself into beads, the change being assisted by the sudden liberation of the stretched line. Boys[274] has shown their formation to be quite mechanical, and has obtained an exact imitation of them by smearing with oil a fine thread ingeniously drawn out from molten quartz. The oil arranged itself into globules exactly resembling the viscid “beads” on the spider’s line. If the web be carried bodily away on a sheet of glass, as above described, while the spider is engaged upon the spiral line, the experimenter will have permanent evidence of the manner in which the globules are formed. The last part of the line will be quite free from them, but uniformly viscid. Tracing it backwards, however, the beads are soon found, at first irregularly, but soon with their usual uniformity. The thread which the spider has thus “limed” for the capture of prey is really two-stranded—the strands not being twisted, but lying side by side, and glued together by their viscid envelope. The snare is now practically complete, and the proprietor takes up her position either in the centre thereof, or in some retreat close at hand, and connected with the hub by special lines diverging somewhat from the plane of the web. Notwithstanding the possession of eight eyes—which, in sedentary spiders, are by no means sharp-sighted—it is mainly by the sense of touch that the spider presently becomes aware that an insect is struggling in the net. She immediately rushes to the spot, and suits her action to the emergency. If the intruder is small, it is at once seized, enveloped in a band of silken threads drawn out from the spinnerets, and carried off to the retreat, to be feasted on at leisure. If it seems formidable it is approached carefully—especially if armed with a sting—and silk is deftly thrown over it from a safe distance till it is thoroughly entangled, and can be seized in safety by the venomous jaws of its captor. Sometimes the insect is so powerful, or the spider so sated with food, that the latter hastens to set free the intruder by biting away the threads which entangle it before much havoc has been wrought with the net.