Note 81 — PART I

Cf. A. E. Pratt, Two Years among the New Guinea Cannibals (London, 1906), p. 266, and 3 photographs. The webs spun by the spiders in the forests are six feet in diameter, with meshes varying from one inch at the outside to about one-eighth at the centre. The diligence of the creatures has been pressed into weaving fishing-nets for the use of man by setting up, where the webs are thickest, long bamboos bent over in a loop at the end. On this most convenient frame the spider in a short time produces a web which resists water as readily as does a duck’s back, and holds fish up to a pound satisfactorily. See also Robert W. Williamson (The Maflu Mountain People of British New Guinea (London, 1912), p. 193) who differs materially from Pratt as to the formation of the net. The illustration is reproduced by the kind permission of The Illustrated London News Co.