. American spiders and their spinning work. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits. Spiders. MIMICRY IN SriDEKS. 375 Protect ive Re- sem- blance. since the colors of her body, as well as its shape, correspond well with the colors of the egg sac. We might, therefore, regard this as a case of protective mimicry. This scalpage is never in the shape of re- served stores of food, as Lister seems to think, and therefore cannot be cited, as by Kirby and Spence,^ to show that Conica is " more provident tlian its brethren.
. American spiders and their spinning work. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits. Spiders. MIMICRY IN SriDEKS. 375 Protect ive Re- sem- blance. since the colors of her body, as well as its shape, correspond well with the colors of the egg sac. We might, therefore, regard this as a case of protective mimicry. This scalpage is never in the shape of re- served stores of food, as Lister seems to think, and therefore cannot be cited, as by Kirby and Spence,^ to show that Conica is " more provident tlian its ; Those distinguislied en- tomologists should have known that spiders do not feed upon the hard shells of dead insects. Tliis mode of disposing of the fragments of her feasts is not limited to Caudata's cocoons. Like her English congener Conica, as described by Lister, she hangs those remnants upon her snare. I often see orbs through the middle of which are stretched, above and below the hub, a perpendic- ular ribbon of open fibre. Along this will be attached two or three little conical balls above and below the hub (see Fig. 319), composed of the members of dead insects cut into fine particles and lashed together by threads. May we venture to suppose that this also is a case of mimicry, that is to say, a purpose to set up " dum- mies" to distract the attacks of hymenopterous and other enemies from her own person? I have met a like behavior in Acrosoma rugosa. The web was a small one, five inches in diameter, spun between the branches of a fir tree. Around the margin Aero- (;]jg remains of seven flies were threaded, much soma j^ ^j^g fashion above described. Three of these were above and three below the centre. They appeared to be mere shells, not fresh insects trussed up for future use, as one often sees when flies are plenty. They had not simply become thus entangled when cast out from the web, for three of them were fastened above the centre, at which the spid
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
