. 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. MATERNAL INDUSTRY : COCOONS OF ORBWEAVERS. 109 den among vegetable leaves, as the huge tarantula and the large Lateri- grade spider, Heterapoda venatoria, are brought to our port from the West Indies in bunches of bananas and other fruit. Or, she may have floated in, as a young balloonist, from some city garden; for the species is abundant in open grounds within the city limits. Instead of brusliing her down and killing her, af
. 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. MATERNAL INDUSTRY : COCOONS OF ORBWEAVERS. 109 den among vegetable leaves, as the huge tarantula and the large Lateri- grade spider, Heterapoda venatoria, are brought to our port from the West Indies in bunches of bananas and other fruit. Or, she may have floated in, as a young balloonist, from some city garden; for the species is abundant in open grounds within the city limits. Instead of brusliing her down and killing her, after the usual manner of dealing with such creatures, the farmer took a fancy to preserve her, and would allow no one around his stall to inflict any injury upon her. She wove her char- acteristic web against one of the iron rods for suspending meat, chickens, game, etc., and there remained secure during the season. Some time between the 10th and 20th of August she be- gan to make a cocoon, which she enclosed within a little tent of interlacing lines, after the manner of that repre- sented at Fig. 40. About a week or ten days thereafter she made a second cocoon, placing it in a position sixteen inches above the other. Both of these co- coons I saw precisely as they were left by the spider. They were spun within tents of crossed lines, five or six inches long and four or five wide, with a thickness of betweeii two and thvec inches. The lines constituting the under edges of the tent were at- tached to the post of the stall on which the orb was spun. The upper tent had its roof lines sustained and drawn out from the post by the foundation lines of the orb. (Pig. 106.) The lines composing the tents were of a greenish yellow silk, sim- ilar to that used in the construction of the cocoon cases. I removed the cocoons and opened them. The lower one was an inch and a quarter long and seven-eighths of an inch wide; was com- posed of a soft, yellow silken plush, and inside was constructed
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
