My fat neighbour, the Angular Epeira, consulted by the light of a lantern, shall tell us how the renewal of the net proceeds.  As the twilight fades, she comes down cautiously from her day-dwelling; she leaves the foliage of the cypresses for the suspension-cable of her snare.  Here she stands for some time; then, descending to her web, she collects the wreckage in great armfuls.  Everything—­spiral, spokes and frame—­is raked up with her legs.  One thing alone is spared and that is the suspension-cable, the sturdy piece of work that has served as a foundation for the previous buildings and will serve for the new after receiving a few strengthening repairs.

The collected ruins form a pill which the Spider consumes with the same greed that she would show in swallowing her prey.  Nothing remains.  This is the second instance of the Spiders’ supreme economy of their silk.  We have seen them, after the manufacture of the net, eating the central guide-post, a modest mouthful; we now see them gobbling up the whole web, a meal.  Refined and turned into fluid by the stomach, the materials of the old net will serve for other purposes.

As goon as the site is thoroughly cleared, the work of the frame and the net begins on the support of the suspension-cable which was respected.  Would it not be simpler to restore the old web, which might serve many times yet, if a few rents were just repaired?  One would say so; but does the Spider know how to patch her work, as a thrifty housewife darns her linen?  That is the question.

To mend severed meshes, to replace broken threads, to adjust the new to the old, in short, to restore the original order by assembling the wreckage would be a far-reaching feat of prowess, a very fine proof of gleams of intelligence, capable of performing rational calculations.  Our menders excel in this class of work.  They have as their guide their sense, which measures the holes, cuts the new piece to size and fits it into its proper place.  Does the Spider possess the counterpart of this habit of clear thinking?

People declare as much, without, apparently, looking into the matter very closely.  They seem able to dispense with the conscientious observer’s scruples, when inflating their bladder of theory.  They go straight ahead; and that is enough.  As for ourselves, less greatly daring, we will first enquire; we will see by experiment if the Spider really knows how to repair her work.

The Angular Epeira, that near neighbour who has already supplied me with so many documents, has just finished her web, at nine o’clock in the evening.  It is a splendid night, calm and warm, favourable to the rounds of the Moths.  All promises good hunting.  At the moment when, after completing the great spiral, the Epeira is about to eat the central cushion and settle down upon her resting-floor, I cut the web in two, diagonally, with a pair of sharp scissors.  The sagging of the spokes, deprived of their counter-agents, produces an empty space, wide enough for three fingers to pass through.