. 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. 79 October 1st. When first observed, it was a round ball, which was gradually wrought into a pear shaped object. This, when I saw it, was hung from the under side of a Cocoon sheeted Hung to a curtain (Fig. 41), that curved over and extended like a bridge from the shield shaped hub of the snare to the adjacent wall. The curtain terminated in a pocket, from the bottom of which
. 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. 79 October 1st. When first observed, it was a round ball, which was gradually wrought into a pear shaped object. This, when I saw it, was hung from the under side of a Cocoon sheeted Hung to a curtain (Fig. 41), that curved over and extended like a bridge from the shield shaped hub of the snare to the adjacent wall. The curtain terminated in a pocket, from the bottom of which the cocoon was suspended. The cocoon was thus just behind the orb which was spun across the angle about seven feet from the floor. The characteristic zig- zag ribbon of the web extended well downward, and a number of lines stretched from side to side across the angle, nearly to the floor, forming a convenient gang- way for the spider. Immediately after finishing her work the mother spider be- gan to languish. She would not take flies as aforetime when of- fered to her. Once she tried to escape from the room into the Park, but was brought back, and placed upon her lower gangway lines, which she mounted, with great apparent difficulty, to the central shield, behind which she stationed herself. She was found dead upon the floor one morning, having lived only a few days after the completion of her cocoon. The cocoons of Cophinaria vary in length from five- eighths of an inch to one inch and five-eighths. Three meas- urements between these limits are one and a half, one and a fourth, and one and one-eighth inches. The bowl is gen- erally about one inch wide, and the flask one-eighth inch wide at the tip of the neck. The bowls are for the most coon of Argiope part decidedly pyriform in shape, but sometimes are spher- ical instead of oval. As the spiderlings grow a little within the sac after liatching, the bowl somewhat expands, or rather fulls out, but the original remains su
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
