The top is hollowed into a crater closed with a silky padding.  Every other part is contained in the general wrapper, formed of thick, compact white satin, difficult to break and impervious to moisture.  Brown and even black silk, laid out in abroad ribbons, in spindle-shaped patterns, in fanciful meridian waves, adorns the upper portion of the exterior.  The part played by this fabric is self-evident:  it is a waterproof cover which neither dew nor rain can penetrate.

Exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, among the dead grasses, close to the ground, the Epeira’s nest has also to protect its contents from the winter cold.  Let us cut the wrapper with our scissors.  Underneath, we find a thick layer of reddish-brown silk, not worked into a fabric this time, but puffed into an extra-fine wadding.  It is a fleecy cloud, an incomparable quilt, softer than any swan’s-down.  This is the screen set up against loss of heat.

And what does this cosy mass protect?  See:  in the middle of the eiderdown hangs a cylindrical pocket, round at the bottom, cut square at the top and closed with a padded lid.  It is made of extremely fine satin; it contains the Epeira’s eggs, pretty little orange-coloured beads, which, glued together, form a globule the size of a pea.  This is the treasure to be defended against the asperities of the winter.

Now that we know the structure of the work, let us try to see in what manner the spinstress sets about it.  The observation is not an easy one, for the Banded Epeira is a night-worker.  She needs nocturnal quiet in order not to go astray amid the complicated rules that guide her industry.  Now and again, at very early hours in the morning, I have happened to catch her working, which enables me to sum up the progress of the operations.

My subjects are busy in their bell-shaped cages, at about the middle of August.  A scaffolding is first run up, at the top of the dome; it consists of a few stretched threads.  The wire trellis represents the twigs and the blades of grass which the Spider, if at liberty, would have used as suspension-points.  The loom works on this shaky support.  The Epeira does not see what she is doing; she turns her back on her task.  The machinery is so well put together that the whole thing goes automatically.

The tip of the abdomen sways, a little to the right, a little to the left, rises and falls, while the Spider moves slowly round and round.  The thread paid out is single.  The hind-legs draw it out and place it in position on that which is already done.  Thus is formed a satin receptacle the rim of which is gradually raised until it becomes a bag about a centimetre deep. {19} The texture is of the daintiest.  Guy-ropes bind it to the nearest threads and keep it stretched, especially at the mouth.

Then the spinnerets take a rest and the turn of the ovaries comes.  A continuous shower of eggs falls into the bag, which is filled to the top.  The capacity of the receptacle has been so nicely calculated that there is room for all the eggs, without leaving any space unoccupied.  When the Spider has finished and retires, I catch a momentary glimpse of the heap of orange-coloured eggs; but the work of the spinnerets is at once resumed.