. 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. 192 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. gathered up between them the ordinary coil of silk thread. Thcii she stretched forward the two fore legs upon one side of her body and grasped the trapline just in front of her face, and bent the other two fore pairs of legs around toward the ball within which the insect was swathed and which was held well elevated within the mouth. The two bent fore legs evidently assisted in manipu
. 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. 192 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. gathered up between them the ordinary coil of silk thread. Thcii she stretched forward the two fore legs upon one side of her body and grasped the trapline just in front of her face, and bent the other two fore pairs of legs around toward the ball within which the insect was swathed and which was held well elevated within the mouth. The two bent fore legs evidently assisted in manipulating the food while the spider made a meal. This seemed as odd a posture as that assumed during the swathing of the fly. (See Fig. 185.) When the snare has been sprung and the spider wishes to tighten it, she does so by apparently first drawing upon the trapline with the fore feet, accomplishing the movement after the manner of Epeiroids yj^® °*^ by placing one claw before the other, as a sailor ascends a rope hand over hand. At the same time, or immediately thereafter, she executes a similar movement with the two hind feet, only reversing the direction. It should be said that during the process of snapping the net, the hind pair of feet hold to the trapline and never let go until the spider abandons her position to visit the snare in search of prey. The third pair are also held in position, so that when the hind feet begin to pull backward, shoving hand over hand, so to speak, under the trapline towards the point of attachment, an amount of slack is formed between these feet and those of the third pair, which very soon rolls up into the coil of slack line Mduch has just been described. It is thus quite pre- FiG. 185. Hyptiotes eating an insect. . , pared for another sprnig of the snare. I have observed the same peculiar use of the hind legs when the spider had occasion to raise herself from beneath upwards. Epeiroids ascend a dropline head uppermost, pulling themselves han
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
