. 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. 94 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK,. Fig. 73. Cocoon of Meta menardi. (About one- third larger than natural size. and green color. The case which envelops it is twenty millimetres long, and tlie central egg mass measures four-fifths of an inch (ten millimetres) in width. The centre, which contains the eggs, is white, but grows brown from the moment of enclosure. The cocoon of Meta menardi, as I have found it, is a somew
. 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. 94 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK,. Fig. 73. Cocoon of Meta menardi. (About one- third larger than natural size. and green color. The case which envelops it is twenty millimetres long, and tlie central egg mass measures four-fifths of an inch (ten millimetres) in width. The centre, which contains the eggs, is white, but grows brown from the moment of enclosure. The cocoon of Meta menardi, as I have found it, is a somewhat oblong roll of brownish silk, not very com- pact in texture, but sufficiently open to allow one to see the eggs enclosed with- in. It is deposited near the snare of the female, and simply attached to some surface by a rather sparing system of supporting lines.! According to Blackwall, the species (Epeira fusca) as observed by him in North Wales makes a cocoon somewhat different from this. In autumn the female fabricates a large oviform menardi °^*^°^^ ^^ white silk, of so delicate a texture that the eggs, connected together by silken lines in a globular mass a quarter of an inch in diameter, may be seen distinctly within it. Its transverse axis measures about eleven-tenths of an inch, and its conjugate axis eight-tenths. It is attached by numerous lines, generally forming a short pedicle on one extremity to the walls or roofs of the places it inhabits. (See Fig. 74.) The eggs, which are yellow and spherical, arc between four and five hundred in number. ^ The general characteristics of the cocoon as thus described by Blackwall correspond with those of the American species, except in the habit of suspending the cocoon by a short pedicle. However, a wider obser- vation of the American species might show even closer re- semblance in cocooning habit. One or two of my specimens have a little tuft at one pole, as though a slight stalk or attachment had been there made. The cocoo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
