. 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. ENGINEERING SKILL OF SPIDERS. 219 or, perhaps, had been purposely massed by the spider. However that may be, the ball was utilized as a nest; its centre had been pierced, a spher- ical cavity formed by silk lining the interior, which was entered by a circular door bound around tlie edge by spinningwork. This quaint dom- icile was pendent from one of the strong upper foundation lines, and herein Strix rested, while the emmet car
. 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. ENGINEERING SKILL OF SPIDERS. 219 or, perhaps, had been purposely massed by the spider. However that may be, the ball was utilized as a nest; its centre had been pierced, a spher- ical cavity formed by silk lining the interior, which was entered by a circular door bound around tlie edge by spinningwork. This quaint dom- icile was pendent from one of the strong upper foundation lines, and herein Strix rested, while the emmet carpenters worked away above her, continually dropping chips over the roof of her nest and the orb be- neath, until one side of the snare was quite covered with them. In this case the position of the nest, as well as its form, was exceptional,. Fig. 207. A meadow orbweb braced to an overhanging branch of a tree. as the nest site of Strix is well nigh invariably beyond the limits of the web, sometimes, indeed, several feet. In these points the spider was evi- dently led to an intelligent variation of her nest building by circumstances. (Fig. 205.) A series of interesting illustrations of the same elasticity of habit in the nesting industry of the Furrow spider may be found in the subsequent chapter on Nesting Habits, and might, with almost equal propriety, have been introduced here. Another case of adaptation maj^ be cited, without improi)riety, as a good example of Epeiroid engineering. While walking through the pine woods at the head of Deal Lake, New Jersey, I found a narrow path blocked by a. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original McCook, Henry C. (Henry Christopher), 1837-1911. [Philadelphia] The Author, Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
