The suspension-cable is incomparably stronger than the rest of the work and lasts for an indefinite time. The web is generally shattered after the night's hunting and is nearly always rewoven on the following evening. After the removal of the wreckage, it is made all over again, on the same site, cleared of everything except the cable from which the new network is to hang. Once the cable is laid, in this way or in that, the Spider is in possession of a base that allows her to approach or withdraw from the leafy piers at will. From the height of the cable she lets herself slip to a slight depth, varying the points of her fall. In this way she obtains, to right and left, a few slanting cross-bars, connecting the cable with the branches. These cross-bars, in their turn, support others in ever changing directions. When there are enough of them, the Epeira need no longer resort to falls in order to extract her threads; she goes from one cord to the next, always wire-drawing with her hind-legs. This results in a combination of straight lines owning no order, save that they are kept in one nearly perpendicular plane. Thus is marked out a very irregular polygonal area, wherein the web, itself a work of magnificent regularity, shall presently be woven. In the lower part of the web, starting from the centre, a wide opaque ribbon descends zigzag-wise across the radii. This is the Epeira's trade-mark, the flourish of an artist initialling his creation. "Fecit So-and-so," she seems to say, when giving the last throw of the shuttle to her handiwork. That the Spider feels satisfied when, after passing and repassing from spoke to spoke, she finishes her spiral, is beyond a doubt: the work achieved ensures her food for a few days to come. But, in this particular case, the vanity of the spinstress has naught to say to the matter: the strong silk zigzag is added to impart greater firmness to the web. THE LIME-SNARE. The spiral network of the Epeirae possesses contrivances of fearsome cunning. The thread that forms it is seen with the naked eye to differ from that of the framework and the spokes. It glitters in the sun, looks as though it were knotted and gives the impression of a chaplet of atoms. To examine it through the lens on the web itself is scarcely feasible, because of the shaking of the fabric, which trembles at the least breath. By passing a sheet of glass under the web and lifting it, I take away a few pieces of thread to study, pieces that remain fixed to the glass in parallel lines. Lens and microscope can now play their part.