I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a Dragon-fly, who struggles desperately and sets the whole net a-shaking.  The other, up above, leaves her lurking-place amid the cypress-foliage, strides swiftly down along her telegraph-wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, trusses her and at once climbs home again by the same road, with her prize dangling at her heels by a thread.  The final sacrifice will take place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary.

A few days later, I renew my experiment under the same conditions, but, this time, I first cut the signalling-thread.  In vain I select a large Dragon-fly, a very restless prisoner; in vain I exert my patience:  the Spider does not come down all day.  Her telegraph being broken, she receives no notice of what is happening nine feet below.  The entangled morsel remains where it lies, not despised, but unknown.  At nightfall, the Epeira leaves her cabin, passes over the ruins of her web, finds the Dragon-fly and eats her on the spot, after which the net is renewed.

One of the Epeirae whom I have had the opportunity of examining simplifies the system, while retaining the essential mechanism of a transmission-thread.  This is the Crater Epeira (Epeira cratera, WALCK.), a species seen in spring, at which time she indulges especially in the chase of the Domestic Bee, upon the flowering rosemaries.  At the leafy end of a branch, she builds a sort of silken shell, the shape and size of an acorn-cup.  This is where she sits, with her paunch contained in the round cavity and her forelegs resting on the ledge, ready to leap.  The lazy creature loves this position and rarely stations herself head downwards on the web, as do the others.  Cosily ensconced in the hollow of her cup, she awaits the approaching game.

Her web, which is vertical, as is the rule among the Epeirae, is of a fair size and always very near the bowl wherein the Spider takes her ease.  Moreover, it touches the bowl by means of an angular extension; and the angle always contains one spoke which the Epeira, seated, so to speak, in her crater, has constantly under her legs.  This spoke, springing from the common focus of the vibrations from all parts of the network, is eminently fitted to keep the Spider informed of whatsoever happens.  It has a double office:  it forms part of the Catherine-wheel supporting the lime-threads and it warns the Epeira by its vibrations.  A special thread is here superfluous.

The other snarers, on the contrary, who occupy a distant retreat by day, cannot do without a private wire that keeps them in permanent communication with the deserted web.  All of them have one, in point of fact, but only when age comes, age prone to rest and to long slumbers.  In their youth, the Epeirae, who are then very wide-awake, know nothing of the art of telegraphy.  Besides, their web, a short-lived work whereof hardly a trace remains on the morrow, does not allow of this kind of industry.  It is no use going to the expense of a signalling-apparatus for a ruined snare wherein nothing can now be caught.  Only the old Spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, are warned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the web.