. American spiders and their spinningwork. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits . upon a wooden block. 224 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. The block was laid upon a rough plastered cellar window (in my church cel-lar) much frequented by sjjiders, and was overspun as indicated in the ridge of the pyramidal structure drooped between the tips of the wirehoop, quite like the main cable of a wire suspension this immerous diverging lines stretched on either side tothe edge of the block and t
. American spiders and their spinningwork. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits . upon a wooden block. 224 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. The block was laid upon a rough plastered cellar window (in my church cel-lar) much frequented by sjjiders, and was overspun as indicated in the ridge of the pyramidal structure drooped between the tips of the wirehoop, quite like the main cable of a wire suspension this immerous diverging lines stretched on either side tothe edge of the block and the window ledge beyond. Belowthe ridge cable and within the side guy lines a maze ofthickened netted lines was spread, from which supi^ort-ing trestle like lines dropj^ed down perpendicularlyto the surface of the block. The spider her-self, with several white globular flossy co-and a bevy of younglings be-sides, was domiciledwithin a series of linesthat extended from oneof the wire tips (left/ liand of the cut) to thestone window frame. Theresemblance of this struct-ure to the wire bridges orwooden trestlework of hu-man engineers is apparentat a =^ =^ i| At times,when the sit-uation will al-low, the spin-ningwork ofTheridium Fig. 212. Theridiums silk suspension bridge. aSSUmeS even more decidedly the form of a nest. For example, in the horse stablesof Almora, the country seat of a gentleman resident at Wallingford,the windows are protected by a wide meshed wire frame. Within themeshes and around the window frame a vast number of spiderlings of Theridium tepidariorum had colonized. The scant lines whichGlobular formed the original snares had gradually been thickened aroundStruct- ^j^g margins, from which stay lines were thrown out in all di-TvT^d rcctions. In the course of time the snare assumed the globularium shape which is indicated in the cut. (Fig. 213.) Within the centre, which was more scantily woven and more open thanelsewhere, the spider was established. This c
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