In the long run, continual contact with those threads might produce a certain adhesion and inconvenience to the Spider, who must preserve all her agility in order to rush upon the prey before it can release itself.

For this reason, gummy threads are never used in building the post of interminable waiting.
It is only on her resting-floor that the Epeira sits, motionless and with her eight legs outspread, ready to mark the least quiver in the net.

It is here, again, that she takes her meals, often long-drawn out, when the joint is a substantial one; it is hither that, after trussing and nibbling it, she drags her prey at the end of a thread, to consume it at her ease on a non-viscous mat.

As a hunting-post and refectory, the Epeira has contrived a central space, free from glue.
As for the glue itself, it is hardly possible to study its chemical properties, because the quantity is so slight.

The microscope shows it trickling from the broken threads in the form of a transparent and more or less granular streak.