The Spider retreats to her cable and looks on without being greatly frightened.  When I have done, she quietly returns.  She takes her stand on one of the halves, at the spot which was the centre of the original orb; but, as her legs find no footing on one side, she soon realizes that the snare is defective.  Thereupon, two threads are stretched across the breach, two threads, no more; the legs that lacked a foothold spread across them; and henceforth the Epeira moves no more, devoting her attention to the incidents of the chase.

When I saw those two threads laid, joining the edges of the rent, I began to hope that I was to witness a mending-process: 

‘The Spider,’ said I to myself, ’will increase the number of those cross-threads from end to end of the breach; and, though the added piece may not match the rest of the work, at least it will fill the gap and the continuous sheet will be of the same use practically as the regular web.’

The reality did not answer to my expectation.  The spinstress made no further endeavour all night.  She hunted with her riven net, for what it was worth; for I found the web next morning in the same condition wherein I had left it on the night before.  There had been no mending of any kind.

The two threads stretched across the breach even must not be taken for an attempt at repairing.  Finding no foothold for her legs on one side, the Spider went to look into the state of things and, in so doing, crossed the rent.  In going and returning, she left a thread, as is the custom with all the Epeirae when walking.  It was not a deliberate mending, but the mere result of an uneasy change of place.

Perhaps the subject of my experiment thought it unnecessary to go to fresh trouble and expense, for the web can serve quite well as it is, after my scissor-cut:  the two halves together represent the original snaring-surface.  All that the Spider, seated in a central position, need do is to find the requisite support for her spread legs.  The two threads stretched from side to side of the cleft supply her with this, or nearly.  My mischief did not go far enough.  Let us devise something better.

Next day, the web is renewed, after the old one has been swallowed.  When the work is done and the Epeira seated motionless at her central post, I take a straw and, wielding it dexterously, so as to respect the resting-floor and the spokes, I pull and root up the spiral, which dangles in tatters.  With its snaring-threads ruined, the net is useless; no passing Moth would allow herself to be caught.  Now what does the Epeira do in the face of this disaster?  Nothing at all.  Motionless on her resting-floor, which I have left intact, she awaits the capture of the game; she awaits it all night in vain on her impotent web.  In the morning, I find the snare as I left it.  Necessity, the mother of invention, has not prompted the Spider to make a slight repair in her ruined toils.