apple pie. Then she cuts each piece in two, once and again, making eight, then sixteen pieces. Those are the spokes for the wheel web. The many crossings make a stout hub. She tests the spokes, pulling on each one and running over them. She has three claws, and fine-toothed bristle combs on her hind feet. May be she combs the snarls out and brushes away dust.
spider and its web
Back she goes to the hub and weaves a spiral line, crossing the spokes and gluing the joints. She does it much as your mother makes a spider wheel in lace work. After a few wide turns, she makes the crossing circles closer together, because the spokes flare farther apart. She doesn't fill in all the space out to her foundation lines. Some building sites are larger than others. She takes the best one she can find, but her web is always about the same size.
Finished? No, indeed. When men build houses they first put up the frame work, then cheap scaffolding to stand on. Mrs. Spider sets up scaffolding to walk on. She starts back from the outside edge of the wheel. This time she uses a much better silk. It is studded with little sticky beads. You heard Mrs. House Fly say she liked smooth things to walk on, didn't you? Gummy spider webs tangle in the hairs on her feet, and hold her for an instant. Mrs. Spider knows that very well. Her web is a very good sticky fly paper. As she travels back to the hub, she cuts the scaffolding away. Then she makes a silk den behind the web, and connects the web and the den with a telephone, or door bell wire, that she keeps her foot on That web is stretched like a drum-head. When a fly drops on it, it vibrates.
