“Be quiet,” commanded Mrs. Orb Weaver. “She is my guest, and anything she wishes to know I shall be happy to tell her. Now, to get on, our webs are made of silk, and the silk comes from our own bodies, through little tubes called spinnerets. It is soft at first, but gets harder when it reaches the air, just like caterpillar silk. We guide each thread with our hind feet, making heavier strands by twisting a number of fine ones together. Of course, we spin the foundation lines first. They are the ones which fix the web to the bush. Then the ray lines, those like the spokes in a wheel. They are all heavy strands, and only after they are finished do we spin the real snare, the lines which run around. They are very fine, and are covered with a sort of glue, for they have to catch and hold the flies and other insects that come on the web. We orb weavers are the only ones who have this glue. No other spiders use it. They trust to the meshes of the web to entangle their prey.” “But why don’t the sticky parts catch you too?” asked Ruth, who had been listening with eager attention. “I’ve seen you run all over your web and——” “We never get caught. Of course not,” finished Mrs. Orb Weaver. “And why? That’s a question. The wise men don’t know, and if we do, we are not telling. Now I am getting hungry, so I think I will tell a little story, then we will adjourn. I am sorry there isn’t time for Mrs. Funnel Weaver to speak.” “But there is,” declared a large brown spider, whose body looked as though it were set on a framework of legs. “I mean to speak too—if only to point out all those webs in the grass.” “Oh, I’ve often seen webs like that,” said Ruth. “They are lovely with dew on them. But why do you call yourself a funnel weaver?” “I don’t!” she snapped. “The men, who think they know everything, gave me that name, because at one side of my web is a funnel-shaped tube. It is our way to escape our enemies. We run through it into the grass when something too big for us to manage gets into our web.” “I generally make my web in houses,” said a small, slender-legged, light-coloured spider. She spoke in a hurry, as though she was afraid some one might stop her before she finished. “I have cousins who like fields and fences and outbuildings, but our webs are all the same pattern. Not so regular as yours, Mrs. Orb Weaver, but very fine and delicate.” “Oh, everybody knows you, Mrs. Cobweb Weaver,” said a voice from a nearby twig. “Now if you are speaking of legs——” “We are not,” answered Mrs. Orb Weaver, “and I should like to know how you came here.” “On my legs of course. Don’t you think they are long enough? And though I can neither spin nor weave, I am your relation, and I have as much right to be here as you have. I——” “Why, it’s Daddy Long Legs,” interrupted Ruth, with a friendly smile of recognition. “I like daddies.”