The first Sunday in August is the feast of the patron saint of the village, commemorating the Finding of St. Stephen.  This is Tuesday, the third day of the rejoicings.  There will be fireworks to-night, at nine o’clock, to conclude the merry-makings.  They will take place on the high-road outside my door, at a few steps from the spot where my Spider is working.  The spinstress is busy upon her great spiral at the very moment when the village big-wigs arrive with trumpet and drum and small boys carrying torches.

More interested in animal psychology than in pyrotechnical displays, I watch the Epeira’s doings, lantern in hand.  The hullabaloo of the crowd, the reports of the mortars, the crackle of Roman candles bursting in the sky, the hiss of the rockets, the rain of sparks, the sudden flashes of white, red or blue light:  none of this disturbs the worker, who methodically turns and turns again, just as she does in the peace of ordinary evenings.

Once before, the gun which I fired under the plane-trees failed to trouble the concert of the Cicadae; to-day, the dazzling light of the fire-wheels and the splutter of the crackers do not avail to distract the Spider from her weaving.  And, after all, what difference would it make to my neighbour if the world fell in!  The village could be blown up with dynamite, without her losing her head for such a trifle.  She would calmly go on with her web.

Let us return to the Spider manufacturing her net under the usual tranquil conditions.  The great spiral has been finished, abruptly, on the confines of the resting-floor.  The central cushion, a mat of ends of saved thread, is next pulled up and eaten.  But, before indulging in this mouthful, which closes the proceedings, two Spiders, the only two of the order, the Banded and the Silky Epeira, have still to sign their work.  A broad, white ribbon is laid, in a thick zigzag, from the centre to the lower edge of the orb.  Sometimes, but not always, a second band of the same shape and of lesser length occupies the upper portion, opposite the first.

I like to look upon these odd flourishes as consolidating-gear.  To begin with, the young Epeirae never use them.  For the moment, heedless of the future and lavish of their silk, they remake their web nightly, even though it be none too much dilapidated and might well serve again.  A brand-new snare at sunset is the rule with them.  And there is little need for increased solidity when the work has to be done again on the morrow.

On the other hand, in the late autumn, the full-grown Spiders, feeling laying-time at hand, are driven to practise economy, in view of the great expenditure of silk required for the egg-bag.  Owing to its large size, the net now becomes a costly work which it were well to use as long as possible, for fear of finding one’s reserves exhausted when the time comes for the expensive construction of the nest.  For this reason, or for others which escape me, the Banded and the Silky Epeirae think it wise to produce durable work and to strengthen their toils with a cross-ribbon.  The other Epeirae, who are put to less expense in the fabrication of their maternal wallet—­a mere pill—­are unacquainted with the zigzag binder and, like the younger Spiders, reconstruct their web almost nightly.