Only the old Spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, are warned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the web.
To save herself from keeping a close watch that would degenerate into drudgery and to remain alive to events even when resting, with her back turned on the net, the ambushed Spider always has her foot upon the telegraph-wire.

Of my observations on this subject, let me relate the following, which will be sufficient for our purpose.
An Angular Epeira, with a remarkably fine belly, has spun her web between two laurustine-shrubs, covering a width of nearly a yard.

The sun beats upon the snare, which is abandoned long before dawn.

The Spider is in her day manor, a resort easily discovered by following the telegraph-wire.

It is a vaulted chamber of dead leaves, joined together with a few bits of silk.