More interesting, perhaps, even than the making of the web, is the way in which the spider will sometimes weight it in order to make it steady when a high wind is blowing. There is no doubt about this, as it has been observed by many persons on as many different occasions. I will therefore quote an account at second-hand, as it was given to the late Mr. Wood by one of his friends who was accustomed to watch spiders in his verandah. “One day,” says Wood, “a sharp storm broke out and the wind raged so furiously through the garden that the spiders suffered damage from it, although sheltered by the verandah. The mainyards of one of these webs, as the sailors would call them, were broken, so that the web was blown hither and thither, like a slack sail in a storm. The spider made no fresh threads, but tried to help itself in another way. It let itself down to the ground by a thread and crawled to a place where lay some splintered pieces of a wooden fence thrown down by the storm. It fastened a thread to one of the bits of wood, turned back with it, and hung it with a strong thread to the lower part of its nest, about five feet from the ground. The performance was a wonderful one, for the weight of the wood sufficed to keep the nest tolerably firm, while it was yet light enough to yield to the wind and so prevent further injury. The piece of wood was about two and a half inches long, and as thick as a goose quill. On the following day a careless servant knocked her head against the wood and it fell down. But in the course of a few hours the spider had found it and brought it back to its place. When the storm ceased, the spider mended her web, broke the supporting thread in two, and let the wood fall to the ground.” What, it may be asked, could a man have done more? If people were really governed by evidence in their opinions on a great many subjects—for that they are is one of the greatest fallacies in the world—this one case would be sufficient to establish the reasoning powers of all animals standing not lower in the scale than spiders, whilst other instances as good lower down would take it up to them in the same way. But one really believes according to one’s wishes, and it is quite surprising that this fact—which can be verified by anyone—is not more generally recognised than it is.