The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

172 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK.
dust, though we have not seen it remarked in authors that spiders
are equally assiduous in keeping themselves clean. They
have, besides, a very eflicient instrument in their mandibles or
jaws, which, Uke their claws, are furnished with teeth ; and a
spider which appears to a careless observer as resting idly, in
nine cases out of ten will be found slmcly combing her legs
with her mandibles, beginning as high as possible on the
thigh, and passing down to the claws. The flue which she
thus combs oft' is regularly tossed away.
"With respect to the house-spider [A. domestica), we are
told in books, that ' she from time to time clears away the dust
from her web, and sweeps the whole by giving it a shake with
her paw, so nicely proportioning the force of her blow, that she
never breaks any thing*.' That spiders may be seen shaking
their webs in this manner, we readily admit ; though it is not,
we imagine, to clear them of dust, but to ascertain whether
they are sufficiently sound and strong.
" We recently witnessed a more laborious process of cleaning
a web than merely shaking it. On coming down the Maine
by the steam-boat from Frankfort, in August 1829, we observed
the geometric-net of a conic spider [Epeira conica, Walck.)
on the framework of the deck, and as it was covered with
flakes of soot from the smoke of the engine, we were surprised
to see a spider at work on it ; for, m order to be useful, this sort
of net must be clean. Upon observing it a little closely, how-
ever, we perceived that she was not constructing a net, but
dressing up an old one ; though not, we must think, to save
trouble, so much as an expenditure of material. Some of the
hnes she dexterously stripped of the flakes of soot adhering to
them ; but m the greater number, finding that she could not
get them sufficiently clean, she broke them quite off", bundled
them up, and tossed them over. We counted five of these
packets of rubbish which she thus threw away, though there
must have been many more, as it was some time before we dis-
covered the manoeuvre, the packets being so small as not to be
readily perceiv^ed, except when placed between the eye and the
* Spectacle de la Nature, i. p. 61.