[170] Book of Nature, part i. p. 24. Mr. Weston, the editor of “Bloomfield’s Remains,” falls into a very singular mistake about hunting-spiders, imagining them to be web-weaving ones which have exhausted their materials, and are therefore compelled to hunt. In proof of this he gives an instance which came under his own observation[171]! “As a contrast,” says Mr. Rennie, “to the little elastic satin nest of the hunter, we may mention the largest with which we are acquainted,--that of the labyrinthic spider (_Agelena labyrinthica_, WALCKENAER). Our readers must often have seen this nest spread out like a broad sheet in hedges, furze, and other low bushes, and sometimes on the ground. The middle of this sheet, which is of a close texture, is swung like a sailor’s hammock, by _silken_ ropes extended all around to the higher branches; but the whole curves upwards and backwards, sloping down to a long funnel-shaped gallery which is nearly horizontal at the entrance, but soon winds obliquely till it becomes quite perpendicular. This curved gallery is about a quarter of an inch in diameter, is much more closely woven than the sheet part of the web, and sometimes descends into a hole in the ground, though oftener into a group of crowded twigs, or a tuft of grass. Here the spider dwells secure, frequently resting with her legs extended from the entrance of the gallery, ready to spring out upon whatever insect may fall into her sheet net. She herself can only be caught by getting behind her and forcing her out into the web; but though we have often endeavored to make her construct a nest under our eye, we have been as unsuccesful as in similar experiments with the common house spider (_Aranea domestica_).