The weaving spider which is found in houses, having selected some
corner for the site of her web, and determined its extent, presses
her spinners against one of the walls, and thus glues to it one end
of her thread. She then walks along the wall to the opposite side,
and there in like manner fastens the other end. This thread, which
is to form the outer margin or selvage of her web, and requires
strength, she triples or quadruples by a repetition of the operation
just described; and from it she draws other threads in various
directions, the interstices of which she fills up by running from
one to the other, and connecting them by new threads until the whole
has assumed the gauze-like texture which we see. Books of natural
history, all copying from one another, have described these kinds
of web as fabricated of a regular warp and woof, or of parallel
longitudinal lines crossed at right angles by transverse ones glued
to them at the points of intersection. This, however, is clearly
erroneous, as you will see by the slightest examination of a web of
this kind, in which no such regularity of texture can be discovered.