I think of the spinnerets amazing story whenever I click on Google's wonder wheel and wonder if the garden spider knows how much we've copied her world here on the Internet.

Previously, I've talked about the spokes of the garden spiders wheel of web. The details of her work of art doesn't end there.

Once the garden spider has the exact joining when she applies the line to a spoke of her web, the real work begins, but its mystery is found in the design, not her continued efforts. So she goes on, working from the circumference toward the center, though she may not go all the way around every time.

All the spokes are linked up until the web is complete, with hundreds of joins.

Yet it is all one, like so much rubber fabric united when fluid. The works of the great artists hour is ended. However, you will say, she still has to dot the web with those thousands and tens of thousands of gummy globules. No she has already really finished, and the globules are already forming without special application on her part.

The silk for the snare part of the web issues as a sticky stream. Although it apparently solidifies into silk, the surface does not dry, but retains its stickiness.

With the pull of the web this fluid ceases to be an unbroken coating. It parts, as it were, running into little beads, close together, but regularly grouped.

Thus we see, then, that the spider produces different solutions -- one for the framework which is not sticky, and one which is like a living gum, fitted to grip and hold any insect which may brush against it. She knows she has these different reservoirs of precious material, and she knows instinctively on which to draw.

The web is one of the most wonderful things in nature. The spider works by instinct, but she adapts her home to varying conditions, throwing out buttresses here to withstand an unexpected stain. She adds a stout guy-rope there to pull the web out of the way of a descending drip of water. She spinning a back-stay where the sway of a shrub threatens to break down the fabric.

It is interesting to watch her when the wind has cast a heavy leaf into the web. She rushes to the breach, cuts the damaged web with her jaws, works till the leaf is free, and drops to the ground.

Then she mends the broken web. Into it fly all manner of insects midges by the score, flies, bluebottles, or moths. At the least touch she is alert. She doe not see well. She picks up a strand in one of her talons and pulls on it. It is her method of securing directional signals, as our airmen and navigators of the sky say. Vibrations travel along her line, and she races up or down the web as though wearing seven-league boots.

If the victim is a fly, she gives it a fatal bite in the neck. She may then settle down to suck it dry or if she is busy or not hungry, she spins a web all over it, and hangs it there, like a tiny ham on a butcher's ceiling, waiting till she has appetite.

In the case of a wasp or other stinging creature, she is cautious. She can kill the wasp if she takes it at a disadvantage, but the wasp can kill her in fair fight. So she stands afar off and cast out her web like a little man with a tiny lasso.

She nooses the wasp from a distance, runs around and around till she has bound its head and limbs, body and sting. Then, she creeps up and makes the fatal wound.

Six spinnerets, fed from about six hundred glands, equip her for her tasks, and one spider has been known to put forth a hundred yards of silk without a pause.

The Little Parlor Into Which The Spider Invites The Fly

There are many other great web-spinners scattered about the earth. The common House spider is no mean artist, much as tidy housewives detest it.

There is a true parlor behind the sheet of web, into which the fly was invited to walk. It has a way in and another way out, to afford escape from danger, and to crown all, it is weighted with grains of sand or other heavy particles to give it stability. Such is the web of the common house spider and it is a masterly work.

The feats of the Trap door spider, which is numerous in species and methods. Some make their traps in trees, the majority in the ground. Here is a marvel of instinctive ingenuity.

The spider digs a hole in the ground to a depth of several inches, and lines the interior with silk. then it covers the opening with a lid of silk, but bites this through all the way around, except at one spot. There the silk is left undisturbed and so forms a true hinge to the door.

Next, the spider comes out and with infinite industry collects particles of earth and distributes these over the silken flap. Then binds them in place with another layer of silk, adding more layers of earth and silk until the builder thinks it is strong enough.

After that the little master craftsman decorates the hole with moss and other tiny pieces of vegetation until it exactly matches its surroundings.

One may look directly at the door and fortress but not see it. When besieged in this little fortress by an enemy the spider clings to the underside of the door with its legs and pulls with all its strength to resist the attempt to open the door.

Our common World spiders, though they trail a strand of web after them and make silken retreats in the earth, are active hunters in the open, and stalk their prey like cats, finally leaping on them with unerring accuracy.

There are some four thousand species of these spiders, and few are better known than the active jumping species common to sunny walls and sandy banks. Many of these spiders carry their sacks of eggs about with them. The young spiders resemble their parents.

Another interesting member is the Field spider, which makes a small tubular nest in the crevices of a wall, or in the soil and runs a labyrinth of strands to surrounding objects, to catch unwary passers-by, as we snare wild animals in a corral.

More grotesque are the Crab spiders, frequently seen in flowers and interesting because by their side-long gait they imitate crabs.

Finally, there are a few so-called spiders which are not true spiders at all. There is, for instance, the Harvestman spider, having a small body with long legs, and being more nearly related to mites and ticks than to the spider.

Another example of this, the so-called Red spider, which bleeds leaves, that is also really a mite.