. 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. being just two to one in both cases. This regu- larity of proportion add- ed to my perplexity in seeking an exjjlanation for the a{)pearance. Why should the spider have made such a peculiar division in her spiral space? Was I on the track of some new and in- teresting departure from the fixed habit of this species? The snares were figured and described, and for a number of years I sought in vain for an explanation of the peculi
. 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. being just two to one in both cases. This regu- larity of proportion add- ed to my perplexity in seeking an exjjlanation for the a{)pearance. Why should the spider have made such a peculiar division in her spiral space? Was I on the track of some new and in- teresting departure from the fixed habit of this species? The snares were figured and described, and for a number of years I sought in vain for an explanation of the peculiarity-, which, how- ever, I saw but once again, and that in an Orchard spider's weh. At last I found the explanation. On the honeysuckle and ampelopsis vines growing in considerable profusion in my manse premises, I had colon- ized a number of Orbweavers, including several examples of Ar- giope cophinaria. One morning in September, just after a warm shower, while going the rounds of my colonists, I observed on several orbs that a series of spiral lines had been spun from the margin inward, covering about one-half the ordinary spiral space. No other beaded spirals appeared; and looking a little more carefully I observed that those upon the web were all greatly deltated and much more widely separated than usual. In fact, I came to the conclusion that the Argiopes had been engaged upon this part of their snare when overtaken by the shower; that they had abandoned their work, fled to their refuge, and in the meantime the beating raindrops had twisted the spiral lines already spun, until they presented the appearance described, and which is showai at Fig. 88. An hour thereafter I left my study to reinspect the colonists upon the vines. The rain had ceased; the sun was shining pleasantly, and I was sur- prised to observe that the partly completed webs had now been finished. But instead of cutting away the portions originally wrought in, and which had been partially disabled by the ra
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
