TCD MS 10516 folio 78 verso
[12th October 1916] neath the transparent sheet of silk resist the power of the distilling rays and glitter like pearls in the sunbeam. Of such protection is this webbing that, even at midday in a broiling sun, I have seen the drops still pendent on the sheet. No doubt this property is of great value to the spider in retaining for its use a supply of moisture.
The dispersal of spiders through the agency of the wind, wafting them onwards while suspended on a fine filament of silk, takes place here on a most profuse scale. When the breeze blows from the north, the air is often full of spiders silk. It becomes entangled on all the palm trees, flowing from their fronds in waving tendrils. Much is obstructed by the telephone wires crossing the stream, and there