“The house spider’s proceedings were long ago described by Homberg, and the account has been copied, as usual, by almost every subsequent writer. Goldsmith has, indeed, given some strange mis-statements from his own observations, and Bingley has added the original remark, that, after fixing its first thread, creeping along the wall, and joining it as it proceeds, it ‘_darts itself to the opposite side_, where the other end is to be fastened[172]!’ Homberg’s spider took the more circuitous route of travelling to the opposite wall, carrying in one of its claws the end of the thread previously fixed, lest it should stick in the wrong place. This we believe to be the correct statement, for as the web is always horizontal, it would seldom answer to commit a floating thread to the wind, as is done by other species. Homberg’s spider, after stretching as many lines by way of _warp_ as it deemed sufficient between the two walls of the corner which it had chosen, proceeded to cross this in the way our weavers do in adding the _woof_, with this difference, that the spider’s threads were only laid on, and not interlaced[173]. The domestic spiders, however, in these modern days, must have forgot this mode of weaving, for none of their webs will be found thus regularly constructed!” [171] Bloomfield’s Remains, vol. ii. p. 64, _note_. [172] Animal Biography, iii. 470, 471. [173] Mem. de l’Acad. des Sciences, pour 1707, p. 339. The geometric, or net-working spiders (See Fig. 12. Plate IV.) are as well known as any of the preceding; almost every bush and tree in our gardens and hedge-rows having one or more of their nests stretched out in a vertical position between adjacent branches. The common garden spider (_Epeira diadema_), and the long-bodied spider (_Tetragnatha extensa_), are the best known of this order. “The chief care of a spider of this sort,” says Mr. Rennie, “is, to form a cable of sufficient strength to bear the net she means to hang upon it; and after throwing out a floating line as above described, when it catches properly, she doubles and redoubles it with additional threads. On trying its strength she is not contented with the test of pulling it with her legs, but drops herself down several feet from various points of it, as we have often seen, swinging and bobbing with the whole weight of her body. She proceeds in a similar manner with the rest of the frame of her wheel-shaped net; and it may be remarked that some of the ends of these lines are not simple, but in form of a Y, giving her the additional security of two attachments instead of one.”