. 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. in the form of flossy loops of curled thread, seemed to be laid down as straight linos. As a consequence the surface after spinning did not show the floss}^ appearance, for examj)le, of a bit _ of cotton wool, but rather the smooth and ^^-ft~ \-^'lt^- compact appearance of a spool of closely wound sowing thread. Not that the co- coon thread was wrapped quite as closely as the spool, but in a general way it pre- Fios. 200,201. E
. 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. in the form of flossy loops of curled thread, seemed to be laid down as straight linos. As a consequence the surface after spinning did not show the floss}^ appearance, for examj)le, of a bit _ of cotton wool, but rather the smooth and ^^-ft~ \-^'lt^- compact appearance of a spool of closely wound sowing thread. Not that the co- coon thread was wrapped quite as closely as the spool, but in a general way it pre- Fios. 200,201. Epeira strix enclosing her eggs seuted that appearance. This effect was within silk floss. (After Emerton.) , i i ii i j? ii i promoted by the use made oi the leg, which was laid flat along the cocoon, and the last two joints pressed against it, thus serving to compact the threads. When I returned at twelve o'clock and ton minutes, work upon the cocoon had ceased, and the spider was putting in the finishing lines of the maze of interlacing threads within which the cocoon of this species is ordinarily suspended. I was somewhat surprised, however, to find that no change had occurred in the exterior appearance and character of the mass since I had left it. T had supposed that some kind of a varnish would be laid upon the surface, having the idea that perhaps some modification or degree of the material which composes the viscid beading of the snare would be used to cover in the interspaces of the silk on the exterior, thus making it partly weatherproof. But Prima's cocoon showed only the glossy white silken surface with a little tinge of yellow, and no trace of anything but the original silk as it had issued from the spinnerets. This was in sharp contrast with a cocoon in the trying box just above, which had been made by another Argiojjo tw'o days before, but whose making I was not able to see. I had watched it late into the night, and in the morning when I came to look at it the co
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
