It is
the female that does the weaving and the hunting, but the male takes a
share of the booty captured.
Of the skilful spiders, weaving a substantial web, there are two
kinds, the larger and the smaller. The one has long legs and keeps
watch while swinging downwards from the web: from its large size it
cannot easily conceal itself, and so it keeps underneath, so that
its prey may not be frightened off, but may strike upon the web's
upper surface; the less awkwardly formed one lies in wait on the
top, using a little hole for a lurking-place. Spiders can spin webs
from the time of their birth, not from their interior as a superfluity
or excretion, as Democritus avers, but off their body as a kind of
tree-bark, like the creatures that shoot out with their hair, as for
instance the porcupine. The creature can attack animals larger than
itself, and enwrap them with its threads: in other words, it will
attack a small lizard, run round and draw threads about its mouth
until it closes the mouth up; then it comes up and bites it.
40
So much for the spider. Of insects, there is a genus that has no
one name that comprehends all the species, though all the species
are akin to one another in form; it consists of all the insects that
construct a honeycomb: to wit, the bee, and all the insects that
resemble it in form.
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