I put the leg to soak for a quarter of an hour in disulphide of carbon, the best solvent of fatty matters.

I wash it carefully with a brush dipped in the same fluid.

When this washing is finished, the leg sticks to the snaring-thread quite easily and adheres to it just as well as anything else would, the unoiled straw, for instance.
Did I guess aright when I judged that it was a fatty substance that preserved the Epeira from the snares of her sticky Catherine-wheel?
The action of the carbon-disulphide seems to say yes.

Besides, there is no reason why a substance of this kind, which plays so frequent a part in animal economy, should not coat the Spider very slightly by the mere act of perspiration.

We used to rub our fingers with a little oil before handling the twigs in which the Goldfinch was to be caught; even so the Epeira varnishes herself with a special sweat, to operate on any part of her web without fear of the lime-threads.
However, an unduly protracted stay on the sticky threads would have its drawbacks.