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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44496 ***
+
+  The Cambridge Manuals of Science and
+  Literature
+
+  SPIDERS
+
+
+
+  CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+  London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
+  C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
+  London: WILLIAM WESLEY & SON, 28, ESSEX STREET, STRAND
+  Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
+  Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
+  New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
+  Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+  [Illustration: The Banana Spider, natural size, from a photograph by Mr
+  James Adams.]
+
+
+
+
+  SPIDERS
+
+  BY
+  CECIL WARBURTON, M.A.
+  Christ’s College
+  Zoologist to the Royal Agricultural
+  Society
+
+  Cambridge:
+  at the University Press
+  1912
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  Cambridge:
+  PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
+  AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+
+_With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on
+the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known
+Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The modest dimensions of this book are perhaps sufficient indication
+that it is not intended as an aid to the collector. There are about
+five hundred and fifty known species of spiders in the United Kingdom
+alone, and at least an equal number of pages would be needed to
+describe them.
+
+Our concern is with the habits and modes of life of spiders—especially
+of such as are most frequently met with and most easily recognised, and
+the reader, especially if he is fortunate enough to spend an occasional
+holiday in southern Europe, will find little in the following pages
+which he cannot verify—or disprove—by his own observations. Indeed
+the hope that some of his readers may be induced to investigate on
+their own account has actuated the writer throughout, and has led
+him to lay considerable stress upon the methods of research and the
+ingeniously devised experiments by means of which whatever knowledge we
+possess has been obtained.
+
+
+  CECIL WARBURTON
+
+
+  CAMBRIDGE
+  _March, 1912_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                     PAGE
+
+    I. A Survey of the Field. Evidences of spider industry.
+         Where to look for spiders. Variety of habits          1
+
+   II. What is a Spider? The Arthropoda and their
+         divisions. Arachnida. Characteristics of a
+         spider. Spinnerets and their use                      5
+
+  III. The Circular Snare. Foundation lines. The
+         spiral with its viscid beads. The building of
+         the snare. Why the spider is not caught in
+         its own snare                                        13
+
+   IV. The Mental Powers of Spiders. The human standpoint.
+         Instinct. Sight. Hearing. Smell.
+         Taste. Memory and “educability”                      20
+
+    V. Trap-snares and Balloons. Variations of the
+         circular snare. The snare of _Hyptiotes_.
+         Webs of _Theridion_ and _Linyphia_. The iron
+         railing and its aeronauts. A race congress.
+         Gossamer. Geographical distribution                  30
+
+   VI. _Agelena._ Its web. The spider and its behaviour
+         in captivity. The platform and its carpet.
+         The construction of the cocoon. Instinctive,
+         not intelligent                                      38
+
+  VII. Water-Spiders. Marine spiders. The fresh-water
+         spider. The diving bell, and how it
+         is filled with air. Behaviour of the male.
+         Winter and summer houses                             47
+
+ VIII. Crab-Spiders.—Mimicry. The appearance of
+         crab-spiders. Their haunts. Protective
+         coloration and resemblance. Habits correlated
+         with structure. Probable origin of
+         “mimicry”                                            52
+
+   IX. Wolf-Spiders. General habits. Semi-aquatic
+         species. Nomads and settlers. Structure.
+         Eyes. _Lycosa picta._ A colony in full swing.
+         The burrow. Egg-bags. Recognition of
+         cocoons. Want of discrimination. The
+         Tarantula. Its haunts and habits. The
+         death-stroke. The burrow and its parapet.
+         Sunning the cocoon. Carrying the young.
+         Poisonous properties                                 58
+
+    X. Jumping Spiders. The Zebra Spider. Its structure.
+         Its wonderful eyes. Hunting its prey.
+         The use of the drag-line. Sight in jumping
+         spiders. Love dances. Sham-fights. A
+         remarkable piece of research                         76
+
+   XI. Theraphosid Spiders. Sub-division of the Order.
+         Mandibles. _Atypus_ and its nest. Its habits.
+         Aviculariidae. A giant spider. Trap-door
+         nests. Method of burrowing. “Bird-eaters,”
+         and their habits. _Dugesiella._ Poor sight but
+         remarkable sense of touch. _Psalmopoeus_
+         in captivity                                         87
+
+  XII. Stridulation. How sound is produced in Arthropoda.
+         Its purposes. Popular mistakes.
+         Spines and Keys. The purring spider                 105
+
+ XIII. The Spinning Apparatus. Spinnerets. Their
+         mobility. Spools and spigots. Glands. Arrangement
+         in _Epeira_. No interweaving of lines. Functions
+         of glands. Spinning operations.
+         The Cribellum. The feet of spiders                  110
+
+  XIV. The Enemies of Spiders. Cannibalism. Egg
+         parasites. Moulting. Starvation. Body
+         parasites. Solitary wasps. A gruesome fate          120
+
+   XV. Concluding Reflexions. The “use” of spiders.
+         Wide range of habits. Complexity of instincts.
+         The mystery of the egg. The storage of
+         energy. Economy in diet. Conclusion                 126
+
+  LITERATURE                                                 133
+
+  INDEX                                                      135
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  _Frontispiece._ The Banana Spider.
+
+  FIG.
+
+   1. A Spider, a Mite and a Harvestman      9
+
+   2. The Garden-spider and its snare       15
+
+   3. Stretching the viscid line            19
+
+   4. Preparing for flight                  35
+
+   5. _Agelena_ at work                     44
+
+   6. A Crab-spider                         53
+
+   7. Wolf-spiders                          64
+
+   8. A Jumping Spider                      77
+
+   9. The eyes of a Jumping Spider          78
+
+  10. The love dance                        84
+
+  11. Stridulating “keys”                  108
+
+  12. Spinnerets                           114
+
+  13. Spiders’ feet                        119
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A SURVEY OF THE FIELD
+
+
+There are certain days of the year when the immense wealth of spider
+industry going on all around us is revealed in a way calculated to
+strike even the least observant. We all know—and derive no peculiarly
+pleasant thrill from the knowledge—that we can, if so minded, find
+abundance of cobwebs and their occupants by visiting the cellar or the
+tool-house; and probably we have all at times noticed, with a languid
+interest, large circular webs on our favourite rose-bushes, with a
+spider motionless in the centre.
+
+But some spring or autumn morning, when the night has been foggy and
+the sun has only just succeeded in dispersing the mists, every bush and
+hedge is seen to be draped, every square foot of lawn and meadow to be
+carpeted with spiders’ silk. There has been no special activity in the
+domain of these creatures, but every silken line is beaded with drops
+perhaps fifty times its diameter, and what yesterday required careful
+observation to detect is now visible yards away, and we realise for
+once something of the prodigious activity constantly going on though
+ordinarily unnoted.
+
+And it never entirely ceases. True hibernation, if it ever occurs, is
+not the rule among spiders, and there is no time of the year when some
+species may not be found at work. Beat trees or bushes over an old
+umbrella, or sweep grass and herbage with a sweeping net in summer,
+and you will never draw a blank—some spiders are sure to be found. In
+winter such measures are profitless, but if you take the trouble to
+grub among ground vegetation, or shake fallen leaves over a newspaper,
+or search under stones or logs of wood you will have no difficulty in
+finding spiders enough, and by no means dormant. I have even seen an
+enthusiastic collector remove inches of snow and disinter rare species
+from among the roots of the grass beneath!
+
+Spiders, then, are plentiful enough, and it is not only individuals
+that are numerous but there are vastly more kinds or species than
+most people dream of. The Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge, in a book under
+the modest title of _The Spiders of Dorset_ indispensable to all
+British collectors, quaintly observes that most of his friends claim
+acquaintance with three kinds of spiders—the garden spider, the
+harvest spider and the little red spider—two of which, as it happens,
+are not spiders at all. Yet the British List contains about five
+hundred and fifty species, and the spiders of the world, though only
+very partially investigated, already include many thousands of known
+and described forms.
+
+In this little work we shall not at all consider the spider tribe from
+the collector’s point of view. We shall concern ourselves rather with
+habits and modes of life and such structural modifications as are
+correlated therewith. Certain well-defined groups of spiders we shall
+recognise, but specific names will interest us little. And we might do
+worse than step out on such a spring morning as we have imagined and
+rapidly survey the field which lies open for our investigation.
+
+First, then, examine a little more closely one of the garden bushes
+in which the spiders have been so busy, and the chances are that
+three different types of snare will be readily distinguishable. There
+are sure to be some of the familiar wheel-like snares of _Epeira_,
+but note also the fine-spun hammocks of _Linyphia_ with stay-lines
+above and below, and the irregular labyrinths of _Theridion_, its
+lines crossing and recrossing without apparent method. These are
+sedentary spiders, and always to be found at home. All spiders spin
+for some purpose or other, but these—or at all events _Epeira_—have
+brought the art to its highest perfection. Leave them for the present
+and examine a sunny wall or fence. You may chance to see a little
+zebra-striped, flat-bodied spider exploring the surface and directing
+its opera-glass-like eyes in all directions in search of prey. This is
+one of the Attidae or jumping spiders—few and sober-coloured in this
+country, but extraordinarily abundant and often extremely beautiful in
+tropical regions. Pause at the iron railing before leaving the garden
+and observe how the topmost bar and the knobs which crown the uprights
+are alive with spiders, mostly very small, and obviously of many
+different kinds, extremely busy about something that it may be worth
+while to investigate later; then go on into the lane, and note, in the
+banks of the hedge-rows the great sheet-webs and tubes of _Agelena_,
+a near relative of the house-spider, but with a cobweb, thanks to its
+situation, comparatively free from accumulations of dust and filth.
+
+The creatures skipping, dry-shod, on the surface of the river or
+pond, though often called water-spiders, are true insects. The real
+water-spider, _Argyroneta_, which, though air-breathing, spends most of
+its time below the surface of the water, is not to be found everywhere,
+but there are many riparian species which are semi-amphibious in their
+habits and have no objection to a wetting.
+
+Finally, turn into the wood and look carefully on the ground,
+especially where last year’s leaves are still lying. You are certain
+to see a few—and may very likely see countless myriads—of sober
+coloured, rapidly moving “wolf-spiders” (Lycosidae), roaming in quest
+of food. No stay-at-homes, these, but rovers, trusting to speed and
+agility, and not to guile, for their food supply.
+
+All the spiders we have observed so far are in active pursuit of their
+daily business, but if we turn over stones, or logs, or look under
+sheets of loose bark, we shall find others, quiescent for the moment,
+but waiting for nightfall to begin their operations.
+
+But we have probably seen enough to show that a pretty wide field for
+investigation lies immediately at hand, and that a detailed study of
+what we have cursorily glanced at will occupy us so long that we shall
+have little time for considering the spiders of other lands. In the
+first place, however, we had better make quite sure of what is meant by
+a spider.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHAT IS A SPIDER?
+
+
+Not many years ago the group Insecta was held even by Zoologists
+to include numberless small creatures—centipedes, spiders, mites,
+etc.—which further study has shown to present essential differences
+of structure, and in popular language any fairly minute animal is
+still an insect, just as any insect is popularly a “fly”—or, in the
+United States, a “bug.” Scientifically the use of the term Insect is
+now much restricted, though still extensive enough in all conscience,
+since it includes many more than a quarter of a million known species.
+Zoologists recognise a large group of animals characterised by having
+no internal skeleton but a more or less firm external coating of a
+peculiar substance called _chitin_, often strengthened by calcareous
+deposits, which necessitates the presence of joints in their bodies,
+and especially in their limbs if they are to move freely, just as
+medieval suits of armour required to be jointed. These are the
+Arthropoda. One subdivision of this group consists of aquatic animals,
+breathing by gills, and known as Crustacea. Crabs, lobsters, shrimps
+and “water-fleas” are familiar examples, and with the exception of the
+so-called land-crabs the only Crustaceans habitually found on land are
+wood-lice.
+
+The other Arthropoda are air-breathing, and since their characteristic
+breathing organs are branching tubes known as _tracheae_, the term
+Tracheata is sometimes used to include them all. They fall naturally
+into three divisions, the Myriapoda, the Insecta and the Arachnida, and
+it is in this last-named division that we shall find the spiders.
+
+The Myriapoda are the centipedes and millipedes, and having said this
+we may dismiss them, for insects and arachnids are strictly limited as
+to legs; and no myriapod can ever be mistaken for a spider.
+
+The Arachnida are so varied in structure that it is not easy to give
+characteristics common to them all, and to any general statement there
+are bound to be exceptions, but for practical purposes it may be said
+that while an insect, when mature, has only six legs, and a pair of
+feelers or antennae of quite different structure, Arachnids have
+normally eight legs, and their feeling organs are not antennae but
+leg-like “pedipalps.”
+
+Most insects are distinguishable at once by the possession of wings,
+which are never found among the Arachnida, and they generally undergo
+a marked transformation or metamorphosis in their progress from the
+egg to maturity, taking on at first the form of a caterpillar or grub
+and then that of a chrysalis; but as there are many wingless insects
+and many in which the metamorphosis is very slight, the test supplied
+by these characteristics is only of partial application, and we shall
+do better to rely on the number of legs, and the nature of the feeling
+organs. If, therefore, we find a small wingless animal with eight legs
+and a pair of feelers which are not thread-like but much of the same
+character as the legs, though not used for locomotion, we may be sure
+that we are concerned with an Arachnid.
+
+But is it a spider?
+
+Now some groups of the Arachnida may be put out of court at once
+as having an appearance so characteristic that no confusion is
+possible. Such are the Scorpions, and the minute Chernetidea or “False
+Scorpions,” but this cannot be said of the Phalangidea or “harvestmen”
+or of the Acarina or “Mites,” members of which groups not only may be,
+but frequently are popularly taken for spiders. In fact the Phalangidea
+are very commonly spoken of as “harvest spiders” and the “red spider”
+is a mite. A very brief inspection, however, with a pocket lens will
+settle the matter without the least difficulty.
+
+A spider’s body consists of two parts, a cephalothorax (head + thorax)
+and an abdomen. There is a waist, but no neck. The eight legs are
+attached to the cephalothorax, and the abdomen is not segmented or
+ringed like that of an insect, but entire, and bears at its extremity
+or on its under surface a little group of spinnerets or finger-like
+projections from which the spider’s silk proceeds. For the moment these
+three characteristics will suffice—the “waist” behind the leg-bearing
+portion of the body, the unsegmented, legless, abdomen, and the
+spinnerets (fig. 1 _B_). A harvestman, for instance, lacks the waist,
+and its abdomen is segmented. Mites are of very varied form and in
+some the body is more or less divided into two portions, but at least
+two pairs of legs will be found to be attached to the hinder portion;
+and neither harvestmen nor mites possess the spinnerets which are
+the most striking characteristic of the spider; some mites—like the
+“red spider”—can spin, but the mechanism by which that operation is
+performed is of quite a different nature.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1. _A_, a Mite; _B_, a Spider; _C_, a Phalangid.]
+
+Having, then, very readily determined our specimen to be a true spider,
+we may as well use it to note some further structural points the
+detailed examination of which may be deferred till we have considered
+their functions. Note the jaws or _chelicerae_, consisting of a stout
+basal part and a fang which, when not in use, is shut down like the
+blade of a knife; note the pedipalps or feelers, exactly like small
+legs, but showing by their action that their function is sensory and
+not locomotor. If they are knobbed at the end, the specimen is a male,
+otherwise it is a female or as yet immature. Look closely at the front
+part of the cephalothorax, and several eyes will be visible—probably
+eight. They are not compound—divided into innumerable facets, like
+those of insects—but simple and smooth, though to make sure of this
+the use of a microscope would be necessary. Finally, obtain a view of
+the under surface of the abdomen, and note in front, on either side of
+the middle line, two semilunar patches of a lighter colour. These are
+the “lung-books,”—special breathing organs peculiar to these animals;
+two is the usual number, though certain spiders possess a second pair
+behind the first.
+
+But the spinning mammillae or spinnerets are still more characteristic
+and more easily seen, though, curiously enough, it is not among the
+cleverest spinners that they are most conspicuous. In the family
+to which most of the cellar spiders belong (Agelenidae) and in the
+elongate brown or mouse-coloured spiders found lurking under stones
+(Drassidae) they are visible as little finger-like projections at the
+posterior end of the abdomen, but if we have taken our specimen from a
+circular web (Epeiridae) we shall have to look for them more closely.
+In these spiders they are beneath the abdomen near its termination,
+and are not visible from above. Moreover when at rest their tips are
+applied together so that they form a small rosette in surface-view, or,
+in profile, a slight cone.
+
+The best way to capture a spider for examination is to induce it to
+run up into a small glass specimen tube—for spiders readily part with
+their legs if handled roughly—and if we have adopted this method we
+shall see the spinnerets in use as the animal crawls about the tube. It
+will not move without first attaching a silken cable to the glass, and
+this cable lengthens as the spider progresses, so that before long the
+interior of the tube will be a network of silken threads, and its sides
+will be flecked with little white specks where the threads have been
+re-attached for a new departure; and by observing closely we shall be
+able to note the extreme mobility of the spinnerets in action.
+
+All spiders spin, but it is by no means all spiders that make snares
+for the purpose of catching prey. The fundamental purpose of the
+spinning organs seems to be to connect the spider with its point of
+departure. The jumping spiders (Attidae) make no snare, but this
+“drag-line” as it has been called comes in very useful when stalking
+prey on the vertical surface of a wall, when a miscalculation at the
+moment of pouncing upon it would entail a considerable fall were it not
+for such an anchorage. It can hardly be doubted—though of course it is
+incapable of proof—that all the more complicated spinning operations
+originated in this universal spider habit, but all known spiders have
+learnt to apply their power of making silk to other purposes. If they
+do not make snares they at least spin “cocoons” for the protection of
+their eggs, and if they have a definite home from which they emerge
+to seek food, such a retreat is always more or less lined with silk.
+It is clear that a spider cocoon is quite different from that of an
+insect; it encloses the eggs and is manufactured by the mother, whereas
+among the insects the larva makes the cocoon for the protection of the
+pupa or chrysalis into which it is about to turn. However far from
+exhaustive the foregoing study of spider structure may be it will
+suffice for our purposes, at least for the present, and we may proceed
+at once to an investigation of one of the most remarkable achievements
+in the way of spinning—the familiar circular snare or wheel-web of the
+garden spider.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CIRCULAR SNARE
+
+
+Select the most perfect circular snare at hand, and examine it
+attentively. In the autumn, when the large garden-spider, _Epeira
+diademata_ (fig. 2 _A_), is mature, it will probably be easy to find
+such a snare a foot or more in diameter. It is stretched within an
+irregular frame of _foundation lines_ of extra thickness and strength,
+and consists of a large number of radii or spokes connected by what
+appear to be a series of concentric circles, in reality a continuous
+spiral, like the hair-spring of a watch. The central portion is
+different from the rest of the wheel. Probably in the very centre
+there is a vacant space and round this a hub, consisting of a spiral
+line different in appearance from that of the main spiral. It does
+not leave a radius exactly at the point where it strikes it, and the
+rather zig-zag effect has caused it to be known as the “notched zone.”
+Touch the web and it adheres to the finger, but all its lines are
+not adhesive. Test this with some fine-pointed implement, and the
+foundation lines, the radii and the notched zone will give negative
+results; the spiral line alone is viscid, and its viscidity is due
+to the presence of thousands of little beads of gummy matter strung
+on a thin elastic thread. The vast number and uniformity of these
+beads—estimated at 120,000 on a large web—excited the wonder and
+admiration of naturalists until it was proved that they were not
+deposited by the spider as beads at all, but as a uniform coating of
+viscid matter which subsequently arranged itself into equidistant
+globules easily explicable by the physicist. Indeed precisely the same
+phenomenon is seen on a dew-laden web, where similar but very much
+larger beads of water decorate all the lines.
+
+From the hub of the wheel we shall very likely notice a rather stout
+cable diverging from the plane of the snare and leading to a nest of
+leaves spun together. Here the spider is to be found when not on duty
+in the centre of the wheel, and here it constructs its egg-cocoons.
+
+This, then, is the complete circular snare, but we shall understand it
+much better if we watch the spider at work in its construction.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 2. _A_, the Garden Spider. _B_, diagram of a sector
+of the snare. _f_, foundation line; _r_, radius; _v.s_, viscid spiral;
+_n.z_, notched zone; _h_, hub.]
+
+The first business of the spider is to lay down the foundation lines.
+Any sort of trapezium—or even a triangle if large enough—in a more
+or less vertical plane will suffice, and under some circumstances
+the operation is simple enough. The spider attaches a line at the
+point of departure and crawls along, spinning as it goes and holding
+up the newly-spun thread by the claws of one of its hind feet, till
+it reaches a suitable spot for its farthest limit. It then hauls in
+the slack and makes it fast. It will probably return along the line
+thus laid down—still spinning—to the starting point, thus doubling
+the strength of the cable, and indeed a large spider will often repeat
+this operation several times. Now the upper boundary of the future web
+is secured. It is next necessary to find points of attachment for the
+lower boundary, and the spider either drops or climbs down—always
+carrying a line—from one of the ends of the upper line till it reaches
+a spot suitable for its purpose, and the previous performance is
+repeated. If there is any difficulty about a fourth attachment it is
+always open to the spider to climb back along the two lines already
+laid down, and by carrying a loose line with it, to secure at all
+events a triangular frame-work. This frame-work, whether trapezoid
+or triangular, will be reinforced several times and made thoroughly
+trustworthy before the work of making the actual snare is proceeded
+with.
+
+Now the foregoing operation is obviously perfectly simple in certain
+cases, as, for instance when a spider has chosen lattice work, or the
+mouth of an empty barrel as its “pitch,” but snares may easily be
+found in situations where such a mode of procedure seems impossible.
+In a pine forest, for example, one may see huge webs stretched at a
+great height from the ground between boles ten feet apart; or one may
+find such a snare spread across a stream at a spot where the trees on
+either side do not intermingle their boughs. How in such cases does the
+spider accomplish its purpose?
+
+There is little doubt that, wherever practicable, the spider walks
+round, sometimes crawling quite an astounding distance, but that it can
+at need, resort to another method, is easily proved by a very simple
+experiment in the house. Fill any vessel—a basin or a bath—with water
+and arrange an upright post in the middle, placing a spider upon it.
+If the air in the room is absolutely still the captive is powerless to
+escape, but if draughts are present it will sooner or later disappear;
+and it accomplishes this feat by emitting a thread which, caught by the
+air-current, is drawn out from its spinnerets till it by and by becomes
+entangled in the surrounding furniture. This power of emitting silk to
+some little distance and allowing the wind to draw it out is, as we
+shall see, frequently exercised in the early life of many spiders.
+
+The foundation lines which may thus have given the spider great trouble
+to secure, are of extreme importance to it, and may serve for several
+snares in succession. There is little hesitation or delay about the
+subsequent operations. The spokes of the wheel are readily formed by
+carrying lines across to opposite points of the frame-work and uniting
+them where they intersect. They are laid down in no special order, but
+more or less alternation is generally noticeable—apparently for the
+purpose of keeping the tension equally balanced—and the spider will
+occasionally desist in order to go and brace up the frame-work with
+additional stays, which generally have the effect of converting it to a
+polygon.
+
+Before long the requisite number of fairly equidistant “spokes” or
+radii are visible, and then the spider, starting from the centre,
+rapidly spins a spiral thread consisting of a few coils only, to the
+circumference, stepping from spoke to spoke. This is only a temporary
+scaffolding and will not be suffered to remain in the completed snare.
+If the structure is touched at this stage of the operations it does not
+adhere to the finger; the viscid spiral remains to be laid down. Though
+it does not hesitate for a moment, the spider now works with a peculiar
+deliberation, but the operation will be much better understood by
+actual observation than by any amount of description, and we shall only
+recommend the reader to note that the new spiral is exceedingly elastic
+and that at the moment of its attachment to a spoke it is stretched
+and let go like the string of a bow. The spider seems carefully to
+avoid treading on it as it proceeds, utilising the non-viscid spiral
+scaffolding already described.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3. Stretching the viscid spiral.]
+
+A little attention to the centre of the wheel, and the snare is
+complete. Some species of _Epeira_ entirely remove the centre, leaving
+a circular empty space, while others fill it with an irregular network
+of threads.
+
+How does the garden spider avoid getting caught in its own web? We have
+shown that there are many lines which are not viscid, and no doubt
+these are utilised as far as possible, but it can hardly happen that
+the spider never touches adhesive portions of the web with legs or body.
+
+Possibly some explanation is furnished by an ingenious experiment
+which Fabre performed. He found that a glass rod, lightly smeared with
+oil, did not adhere to the viscid spiral; neither did a leg freshly
+taken from a garden-spider unless allowed to remain in contact for
+a considerable time. When, however, this leg had been washed with
+bisulphide of carbon, which dissolves any kind of oily substance, it
+adhered at once. It would seem likely, therefore, that the legs and
+body of the spider itself are protected by some oily exudation from any
+danger of adherence to its own lines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MENTAL POWERS OF SPIDERS
+
+
+Before leaving the garden-spider let us undertake some little
+investigation of its mental powers—if it possesses any. The commonest
+mistake with regard to all animals is to interpret their actions
+from the human standpoint, and to credit them with emotions and
+with deliberate forethought of which there is in reality no proof
+whatever. The power to spin such a complicated snare as we have just
+described predisposes us to attribute a high order of intelligence to
+a creature capable of such an achievement, and when it “shams death”
+on being disturbed we immediately pronounce it “cunning.” The wildest
+conclusions are sometimes arrived at. One author, for instance, states
+that he has seen an Attid spider “instructing its young ones how to
+hunt” and adds that “whenever an old one missed its leap, it would
+run from the place and hide itself in some crevice as if ashamed
+of its mismanagement.” Such inferences, of course, were entirely
+unwarranted from the facts observed. Now the fact that a newly-hatched
+garden-spider can make a complete snare without ever having seen the
+operation performed immediately relegates that action to the realm of
+instinct,—not less wonderful than intelligence perhaps, but certainly
+quite distinct from it. With the much discussed origin of instinct we
+are not here concerned, but a pure instinct differs from intelligence
+in this: that it is due to inherited nervous mechanism and results in
+actions the object of which may be quite unknown to the actors. There
+is no conscious adaptation of means to an end. When a young spider
+spins a web there is not only no evidence that it does so with the
+deliberate purpose of catching flies, but many known facts go to prove
+that it performs the feat, “because it feels as if it must,” and is
+quite ignorant of the purpose to be subserved.
+
+It is no doubt quite beyond our power to ascertain accurately the
+mental condition of a spider, but it is perfectly easy to make a few
+illuminating experiments on two points which have a very decided
+bearing on intelligence:—the development of the senses, and the degree
+of what has been called _educability_, or the power of learning from
+experience. To what extent can the spider see, hear, smell, feel,
+taste? How far is it capable of varying its action as the result of
+experience? The senses, as far as we know, are the principal—if not
+the only—avenues by which external impressions can reach the seat of
+intelligence, and there is no surer indication of the intelligence of
+an animal than the degree to which it is susceptible of education.
+Probably most readers know the immortal story of the pike cited by
+Darwin in the _Descent of Man_. The pike was in an aquarium, separated
+by a sheet of glass from a tank in which were numerous small fish.
+Not till three months had expired did the pike cease to dash itself
+against the glass partition in its attempts to seize the fish in
+the neighbouring tank. It then desisted and had evidently learnt
+something—but what? After three months, the glass partition was
+removed, but the pike refused to attack those particular fish, though
+it immediately seized any new specimens introduced to the tank. All
+that it had apparently learnt was that an attack on a particular fish
+resulted in a violent blow on the nose. Some degree of intelligence
+must be conceded to the pike, but it can hardly be considered of a high
+order.
+
+Now the garden-spider possesses eight eyes, and might be expected
+to see fairly well, but the experimenter will very soon come to the
+conclusion that the habitual use it makes of them—at all events in
+day-light—is very slight. Touch a web with a vibrating tuning-fork
+and the spider will rush to the spot and investigate the instrument
+with its fore-legs before distinguishing it from a fly. Remember,
+however, that this is only true of what are sometimes called sedentary
+spiders; species which hunt their prey have much better vision. Yet
+even among sedentary spiders the power of sight is not negligible, for
+a most trustworthy observer states that he has several times seen _Meta
+segmentata_, a very common small Epeirid, drop from its web to secure
+an insect on the ground beneath, and return with it by way of the drop
+line, and the same action has been observed in the case of _Theridion_,
+which spins an irregular snare.
+
+There are peculiar difficulties attending experiments on the subject
+of hearing. An absolutely deaf person may be aware of the sounding
+of a deep organ note through the sense of feeling, and a well-known
+experimenter was on the point of drawing interesting conclusions from
+the behaviour of a spider in response to the notes of a flute, when
+he found that precisely the same results were obtained by a soundless
+puff of air. It seems hardly possible to make sure, in the case of a
+spider in a snare, that the sound vibrations are not _felt_, apart from
+any sense of hearing, and it is a remarkable fact that it is only the
+snare-spinning spiders that make any response to sounds:—free-roving
+spiders are apparently quite deaf.
+
+In experimenting with sound we must take two precautions: the
+instrument used must not necessitate any marked action which may be
+visible to the spider, nor must it give rise to palpable air-currents.
+These requirements are best met by a tuning-fork of not too low a
+pitch. We cannot _feel_ the air vibrations emanating from it, but
+can only perceive them by the ear, but we have no proof that the
+spider’s sense of touch ceases precisely at the same point as our own.
+However, no better instrument for experiment seems to be available, so
+we take a tuning-fork, and approach it cautiously—in the quiescent
+state—towards the spider, stationed, we will suppose, in the centre
+of its snare. No notice is taken, and we carefully withdraw it, set
+it vibrating, and approach it again in the same manner. There is now
+generally a response, the spider raising its front legs and extending
+them in the direction of the fork, or, if the sound is loud, dropping
+suddenly by a thread and remaining suspended some inches below the
+snare. The experiment should be repeated several times with the fork
+sometimes still, sometimes vibrating, and the conclusion arrived at
+will be that the spider is aware of the vibrating fork—but by which
+sense? It is noteworthy that a fork giving a low note is always most
+effective.
+
+Now here is a very remarkable fact. In two widely different groups of
+spiders—the Theraphosidae or so called “bird-eating spiders” and the
+Theridiidae—there are species with a stridulating or sound-making
+apparatus, and we should hardly expect a deaf creature to evolve an
+elaborate mechanism for the production of sound. This is a matter,
+however, that we shall discuss later.
+
+No amount of research has succeeded in localising the sense of hearing
+in spiders, supposing it to exist. The creature may lose any of its
+five pairs of limbs (four pairs of legs and one pair of pedipalps)
+without alteration in its response to sound. If the front legs
+are missing the second pair are raised when the vibrating fork is
+approached.
+
+It is fairly easy to test the sense of smell in these creatures, the
+only necessary precaution being that no acid or pungent substances
+capable of having an irritating effect on the skin, such as vinegar or
+ammonia, must be employed. Such perfumes as lavender or heliotrope
+are free from this defect. Take a clean glass rod and present it to
+the spider as before, and no notice is taken. Now dip it in oil of
+lavender, allow it to dry, and present it again. Most spiders respond
+to such a test, Epeirids generally raising the abdomen, and rubbing one
+or other of the legs against the jaws, while jumping spiders generally
+raise the head and back away from the rod. Different essences produce
+different effects, but there is seldom any doubt that the creature is
+aware of their presence; it is not deficient in the sense of smell, but
+its localisation has hitherto baffled research.
+
+The sense of taste does not seem to have been made the subject of any
+definite experiments among spiders, though such experiments might well
+lead to interesting conclusions, and the reader might do worse than
+undertake some on his own account. It would be easy, for instance,
+to supply a garden-spider with various insects which are generally
+rejected by other insectivorous animals, and to note its behaviour. It
+might refuse to have anything to do with them, or it might sample them
+and turn away in disgust. In the first case the explanation might be
+that it was warned of their probably evil taste by their coloration
+or smell, but in any case here is an interesting little field for
+research. It is the general belief among arachnologists that the sense
+of taste is well developed among spiders, and it is highly improbable
+that a sense so necessary for the discrimination of suitable food
+should be lacking in animals with so respectable a sensory equipment.
+
+There is no doubt at all that the sense of touch is extremely well
+developed in spiders, especially perhaps, in the sedentary groups, and
+it is probable that, under ordinary circumstances, the garden-spider
+works almost entirely by its guidance. Whether in the centre of the
+web or in its retreat under a neighbouring leaf it is in direct
+communication with every part of its snare by silken lines, and the
+least disturbance usually suffices to bring it to the spot; and then,
+as we have said, it will generally touch the disturbing object, however
+unpromising in appearance, before deciding on its line of action. There
+is little doubt that many of the numerous hairs and bristles with which
+its limbs are furnished are distinctly sensory in function.
+
+So much, then, as to the senses of spiders; but what about their
+“educability”—their power of learning from experience? Here is
+evidently a wide subject, and a difficult one full of pit-falls for
+the unwary, but we may nevertheless draw some inferences from the
+quite elementary experiments on the senses which have been outlined
+above. A spider drops on account of the sounding of the tuning-fork in
+its neighbourhood; can it be educated to take no notice of the sound
+after repeatedly finding that no evil consequences follow? It will
+perhaps be most instructive to give in a condensed form the results
+of an actual experiment selected from many performed by two American
+arachnologists, George and Elizabeth Peckham, whose researches have
+thrown more light than any others upon the mental equipment of spiders.
+They had an individual of the small Epeirid species _Cyclosa conica_
+under observation for a month, and tested it almost daily with the
+tuning-fork. At the sound of the fork the spider would drop; when
+it had recovered itself and returned to the snare the fork would be
+sounded again, and so on. Now on July 20 the spider fell nine times
+successively—the last three times only an inch or two—and then
+took no further notice of the vibrating fork. On subsequent days,
+until August 5, she fell either five, six or seven times, except on
+two occasions when a day’s test had been omitted, and then eleven
+successive falls occurred before the spider ceased to respond. On
+August 5 she seemed startled at the sound but did not fall, though the
+fork was sounded nine times. During the remainder of the experiment she
+generally remained perfectly indifferent to the fork, though on one or
+two occasions she partially forgot her lesson and dropped a very short
+distance, immediately recovering herself.
+
+Observe that the basis of educability is memory. For a fortnight, in
+the case of this particular spider, the lesson learnt on one day
+seemed to be entirely forgotten the next morning, but thereafter a
+definite change of habit seemed to result. This does not appear a very
+great intellectual achievement, but it is by no means despicable,
+for it must be borne in mind that the habit of dropping when alarmed
+is almost the only means of defence such a spider possesses, and the
+instinct which prompts it must be very strongly ingrained. In the
+words of the experimenters—“Taking this into consideration, it seems
+remarkable that one of them should so soon have learned the sound of
+the vibrating fork, and should have modified her action accordingly.”
+
+This single experiment has been here described in some detail largely
+for the purpose of impressing the reader with the importance of
+reducing the problem to its simplest terms before any inferences are
+drawn, and it may well act as a model for any which he may be inclined
+to undertake on his own account. The more complicated the action,
+the more likely is the experimenter to read into it motives and
+mental operations which exist only in his own imagination, and with
+this warning we must take leave of a subject which might tempt us to
+encroach too much on an allotted space.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+TRAP-SNARES AND BALLOONS
+
+
+There are some interesting variants of the circular snare spun by some
+exotic Epeirids. One North American species spins it in a horizontal
+position and then raises the centre, and, by an elaborate system of
+stay lines from above, converts it into a very accurately shaped dome.
+A whole group of orb-weavers habitually decorate a sector of the snare
+with bands of flocculent silk, the object of which for a long time
+puzzled arachnologists, till it was observed that the spider drew upon
+this reserve supply of material to wrap up particularly obstreperous
+insects. It is not unusual for a spider of one of the common species to
+remove a whole sector of the snare, and by stretching a line from the
+centre to a place of retreat along the gap thus formed, to provide an
+unencumbered avenue between its home and its post when on duty. For it
+must not be forgotten that a spider has to walk warily on its own web,
+and must avoid, as far as possible, treading on the adhesive lines, or
+delay and damage to the structure are sure to ensue.
+
+As a rule the circular snares of the different British species are of
+a very uniform pattern, differing chiefly in the degree of neatness
+with which they are constructed, and in certain minor details of the
+“hub,” but we have one spider, _Hyptiotes paradoxus_—an exceedingly
+rare species, scarcely ever seen beyond the limits of the New
+Forest—which makes such a strange snare that it seems a pity to omit
+all mention of it. It consists of a sector—about one sixth of the full
+circle—comprising about four radii with cross lines. From the point
+where the radii meet, a “trap-line” connects the sector to another
+point of attachment; on, or rather under, this trap-line, the spider
+takes up its position, hauling it in so as to tighten the web and to
+leave a slack portion of the line between the points where it holds
+on by its front and hind legs. When an insect impinges on the web and
+causes it to tremble, the spider immediately lets go with its fore
+legs, and the consequent vibration of the web helps to entangle its
+prey.
+
+The circular snare is the highest form of spinning work attained by
+spiders, and there is little temptation to expend much time in studying
+the cruder structures that meet the eye everywhere, but two other types
+are worth a brief notice. Examine any garden bush—particularly a
+holly bush, of which the rather rigid leaves provide excellent points
+of support—and you will find numberless small webs made without any
+discoverable method, the lines crossing one another at random in all
+directions. These are the snares of some species of _Theridion_, and if
+the webs lack interest the spiders themselves are worth looking at, for
+they are nearly always quite prettily ornamented.
+
+The other common type of snare is that of _Linyphia_. It is larger and
+of more definite design, consisting of a finely-spun hammock stretched
+horizontally, and surmounted by a labyrinth of irregular lines. Flies
+entangled in the labyrinth fall upon the hammock in their struggles to
+escape, and the spider is at hand—always on the under surface of the
+hammock—to ensure their capture.
+
+Having noted these three common types of snare, let us leave the garden
+and choose a new field for our observations.
+
+If it is an absolutely calm sunny October morning it will be a suitable
+occasion for visiting an iron railing, the “knobbier” the better. Early
+summer will do, but late autumn is generally more fruitful. Almost
+any railing will serve, but the most satisfactory kind is one with
+the uprights surmounted by round knobs, and not by spikes. We see at
+once that the knobs, and the upper rail are glistening with silken
+lines; many spiders have obviously been at work there. Lines streak
+the top-rail in all directions, stretch from knob to rail, or from
+knob to knob if not too distant, while here and there loose ends or
+streamers flutter gently in the slight currents of air. And closer
+inspection reveals various small objects moving among this labyrinth
+of threads. Most of them are spiders, though insects, and particularly
+weevils, are not wanting. No doubt the weevils know their own business,
+though the writer has not been taken into their confidence, but the
+spiders are the particular object of our investigation. And first of
+all note that it is a veritable race-congress of spiders; the most
+varied groups are represented. Wolf-spiders (Lycosidae) which under
+ordinary circumstances rarely leave the ground are found in company
+with crab-spiders (Thomisidae), jumping spiders (Attidae), as well as
+Epeiridae and Theridiidae of which we already know something. They
+have only one thing in common—they are either small species or small
+and immature specimens of larger species. They seem to be scrambling
+about in a meaningless sort of way, paying little or no attention to
+each other—which is odd, for spiders are terrible cannibals, and as a
+general thing it would be exceedingly unsafe for a small spider to rub
+shoulders with a larger one of a different species.
+
+The majority of them are very small, more or less black, Theridiid
+spiders, the “micros” of the tribe, and their proper home is among
+the roots of grass and herbage. Many of these are interesting objects
+for the microscope—especially if males—because of the remarkable
+protuberances or turrets which rise from their heads and bear their
+eyes as on a watch tower.
+
+These spiders are clearly not “out” for food; they have left their
+ordinary beat for quite another purpose, and we shall probably not
+have to wait long before discovering it. Some one of the group ceases
+its apparently purposeless wandering, and, turning its head in the
+direction of what slight wind there is, raises its fore-body to the
+full extent of its straightened legs, and elevates its abdomen to the
+utmost. Now watch closely—using a handglass if you have one—and you
+will see streamers of silk proceeding from its spinnerets. They are
+shot out for a short distance and then the air current draws them out
+further till they often extend for several feet, though their extreme
+fineness makes it almost impossible to form an accurate judgment of
+their length. Meanwhile the spider has not merely been standing on its
+“toes,”—it has been firmly gripping the silken lines on the railings
+with its claws. Soon it feels the pull of the streaming threads,
+and when the tension is sufficient it lets go with all its claws
+simultaneously, vaults into the air and sails away. Sometimes a start
+is made prematurely and the insufficient buoyancy of the streamers
+causes the spider to descend almost at once, and a new start is made.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 4. Young spider preparing for an aerial voyage.]
+
+This, then, is the habitual method by which new broods of spiders
+distribute themselves, especially the sedentary kinds which would
+otherwise soon become over crowded in the neighbourhood of the parent
+nest. And we really need not have sought out a railing at all except
+for its very great convenience of observation. The same thing is going
+on everywhere. It largely accounts for the astonishing carpet of silk
+that the dew reveals to us on lawns and meadows at such times of the
+year. Young spiders have been busy from early dawn crawling over the
+grass, climbing the higher blades, and setting sail, and the whole
+field is covered with their lines. Railings come in handy as furnishing
+an elevated starting point, but any shrub or bush will do, and young
+spiders have been seen setting sail from the parent web itself.
+
+McCook has given some interesting notes of his own observations on
+aeronautic spiders. He followed an Attid spider fifty feet till it was
+carried upward out of sight in a current of air. A Lycosid disappeared
+in the same way after being followed—at a run—for a hundred feet. The
+largest Epeirid he ever saw taking flight was “the size of a marrowfat
+pea, say one-fourth of an inch long. After having floated over a field
+and above a hedge-row, it crossed a road and anchored upon the top of
+a young tree.” But perhaps his most interesting observation was on the
+ability of spiders to control in some measure the duration of their
+flight by reefing their sails if they wish to descend, for he saw a
+ballooning spider collecting some of the streamers into a ball of silk
+which accumulated near its mouth as it gradually sank to earth.
+
+The phenomenon known as “gossamer” has puzzled people for centuries,
+and English poetical literature is full of allusions to it. Chaucer
+classes it with “ebbe and floud” as an unsolved riddle, and Spenser,
+Quarles and Thomson all make mention of it, generally embodying the
+popular belief that it somehow had its origin in dew. “Scorchèd deaw”
+Spenser calls it, while Thomson’s expression is “dew evaporate.” The
+phenomenon in question is the occasional appearance of vast numbers of
+silken flakes which fill the air, and which in some recorded instances
+extend over many square miles and to a height of several hundred feet.
+Our observations will have given a clue to its origin which is entirely
+attributable to spiders, and in large measure to their ballooning
+habit, though no doubt reinforced by a large quantity of silk spun
+for other purposes and caught up into the air by the breeze. For a
+vivid account of such a shower the reader is referred to Letter LXV of
+White’s _Natural History of Selborne_, and Darwin in his _Naturalist’s
+Voyage_ (Chap. VIII) records a case of the “gossamer spider” descending
+in multitudes on the “Beagle” when sixty miles from land.
+
+In the ballooning habit we have the probable explanation of the
+wide distribution of certain species of spiders which seem at first
+exceedingly ill adapted for covering large distances. The Huntsman
+Spider, _Heteropoda venatorius_, is practically cosmopolitan in
+tropical and sub-tropical regions and the usual view has been that
+ships have conveyed it from port to port. McCook, however, gives
+several reasons for believing that the trade winds have much more to do
+with the matter, and this may well be the case, though both agencies
+have doubtless been at work.
+
+Very likely it was not obvious to the reader why he was recommended to
+select a particularly calm, sunny autumn day for his study of spider
+aeronautics; a strong steady breeze might well appear more suitable for
+the purpose. Yet he would find these operations at a standstill on a
+windy day, and the best possible conditions are a still warm morning
+after a spell of cooler weather. The lightest air-currents serve to
+float the delicate silken threads, and, what is more important, the
+increase of temperature causes an upward draught which rapidly carries
+the spider to a useful height where it sails gently away instead of
+being swept roughly over the surface of the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AGELENA
+
+
+Before going farther afield, let us investigate one of the spinners
+of the sheet-webs that are so unpleasantly familiar in the house. We
+object to them on very obvious grounds, first as evidence of neglect
+and bad housewifery, and secondly as repulsive objects when covered by
+accumulations of dust which their firm texture and their durability
+make inevitable.
+
+The common house-spiders belong to the family Agelenidae. It is quite
+likely that their original home was in a warmer climate where they
+lived out of doors, but that was long ago, and now they uniformly
+select buildings of some sort for their operations. They have, however,
+even in this country, several open-air cousins, and most people know
+the great sheet-web spider of the hedge-rows, though its name—_Agelena
+labyrinthica_—may be new to them. Its web consists of a closely woven
+wide-spreading sheet connected with a tube of even denser material, in
+the mouth of which the spider may generally be seen lurking, a rather
+sinister object. If a better view of the animal is desired it is only
+necessary to agitate the web slightly and the spider runs forward to
+investigate. It is a large species as British spiders go—about three
+quarters of an inch in length—with the abdomen rather prettily marked
+with oblique white streaks.
+
+It is very unlike our garden spider in certain points of structure;
+its body is more elongate and rather rigid, with little play of action
+between the cephalothorax and the abdomen; its legs are notably long,
+and so are two of its spinnerets, which can be seen protruding beyond
+the abdomen as we look down upon it.
+
+But we shall gain little information by looking at the completed
+web, and our best plan is to take the animal home and observe it
+in captivity. We have prepared for its reception a box about a foot
+square, with a gauze top and a movable glass front.
+
+It is not such an easy matter to secure the spider, which can run like
+a lamp-lighter, and which has a way of escape at the lower end of its
+tube. The safest way is suddenly to shut off this means of retreat with
+the finger and thumb of the left hand and simultaneously to present a
+glass phial at the mouth of the tube; the spider runs up into it and
+is taken without the risk of injury. It is never advisable to handle
+spiders, not because any British species is formidable, but because
+they so readily part with their limbs in order to escape, and the
+chances are that only a mutilated specimen will be obtained.
+
+Now _Agelena_ does not seem to be a particularly engaging pet, but
+it has its points. In the first place, it very quickly makes itself
+at home; a short time is spent in exploring its new quarters, but it
+adapts itself almost at once to its changed situation. Moreover it
+is of a peaceable and domestic disposition and the male and female
+live amicably together, which is far from being the case among
+the Epeiridae, whose peculiar marital relations are often—quite
+wrongly—attributed to the whole tribe of spiders. A male garden-spider
+courts the female at the risk of his life, and it is not surprising
+that he should evince great hesitation and caution in his advances. If
+his attentions are unwelcome, or even if they have been accepted, he
+will be promptly trussed up and eaten unless he beats a hasty retreat.
+But with _Agelena_ the conjugal relations are exemplary, and harmony
+reigns in the home. The question of food is certainly a difficulty,
+but if insects are let loose in the cage the spider will attend to the
+catching of them. In some cases raw meat has been found a satisfactory
+substitute.
+
+After a brief exploration of the box the captive soon becomes busy,
+going to and fro across its cage and attaching lines to the sides at
+some height up from the floor. So fine is the work that for a long
+time hardly anything is visible, and the movements of the animal are
+the only clue to what is taking place. By and by it becomes evident
+that a sort of skeleton platform has been spun across the box, upon
+which the spider is able to walk. It is continually strengthened by
+new threads, and braced by stay-lines above and below. It has been
+hardly possible to follow the operations by which this has come about,
+and even now we are chiefly aware of the existence of the platform
+because we see the spider walking upon it; its movements seemed very
+scrambling and unmethodical, but they have resulted in the foundation
+of the sheet-web and its terminal tube. But now it begins to behave
+quite differently, and another phase of the work has clearly begun;
+it crawls about over the almost invisible foundation lines with a most
+curious gait, using its long legs to sway its body from side to side,
+raising and depressing its abdomen at intervals, and as this motion
+continues a beautiful gauzy sheet of incredibly fine texture gradually
+grows into view. What is happening is that the spider is strewing over
+the foundation lines multitudinous threads from its long posterior
+spinnerets, which are beset on their under surface with numbers of
+hair-like spinning tubes from each of which the silk is issuing. All
+day long the process goes on, and by slow degrees the web increases in
+density. Indeed for days after the structure is complete the spider
+spends odd moments in going over the ground again till the sheet, and
+especially the tube proceeding from it to a corner of the box, are so
+closely woven as to have become almost opaque, and its occupant at
+length appears to be satisfied with his handiwork, and retires into the
+tube to wait patiently for casual visitors.
+
+July is a good month in which to experiment with _Agelena_, for if the
+captives include female specimens some further spinning operations of
+a very complicated description may be observed. The time of egg-laying
+is at hand and elaborate preparations have to be made, but if the
+experimenter wishes to see the whole process he must be prepared
+to sacrifice his night’s rest, for the most critical part of the
+performance takes place in the small hours of the morning. We will
+describe what occurred in the case of one _Agelena_.
+
+The approaching oviposition was heralded several hours beforehand by
+the animal commencing to weave a hammock-like compartment from the roof
+of the box and above the sheet-web. This chamber was about four inches
+long and was constructed precisely in the same manner as the sheet, to
+which it was braced by lines from various points of its under surface.
+Its construction occupied the whole day previous to the laying of the
+eggs, and not until half an hour before midnight was it completed.
+Within this compartment, close to the roof, the spider next wove a
+small sheet one inch long, working diligently in an inverted position,
+ventral surface upwards. After a quarter of an hour it rested for an
+equal space, apparently exhausted by its prolonged efforts. An hour
+and three quarters intermittent work served to complete the sheet,
+the spider varying the monotony of its sinuous walk round this small
+area by occasionally walking over it and strengthening the lines which
+attached its angles to the roof.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 5. _Agelena_ weaving her egg-cocoon.]
+
+A marked change now became observable in the manner of working. The
+animal abandoned its incessant to and fro motion but began to jerk its
+body up towards the sheet, throwing silk strongly against it. At the
+same time the posterior spinnerets were actively rubbed together and
+the long posterior spinnerets separated and brought together again
+with a scissor-like action. The result of this performance was to
+invest the under surface of the small sheet with a coating of flossy
+silk quite unlike the ordinary web in texture, the purpose of which
+soon became evident, for at about a quarter past two the spider began
+to deposit its eggs _upwards_, against this loose-textured silk,
+aiding the egg-mass to adhere by occasional upward jerks of the
+body. This occupied between five and ten minutes, and as soon as it
+was accomplished the under surface of the egg-mass was covered by a
+layer of flossy silk similar to that against which it was laid, the
+eggs being thus entirely enveloped in a coating of soft loose-textured
+material. This was next covered in by a sheet of firm texture like that
+of the original web.
+
+It might be supposed that the work was at length finished and that
+a well-earned rest might be enjoyed, but this was far from being
+the case. The spider remained as active as ever though an hour or
+two passed before the object of its industry was evident. All this
+time it was incessantly climbing backwards and forwards between the
+egg-sheet and the hammock and generally scrimmaging round in the most
+unaccountable way, but it gradually became evident that the eggs were
+being enclosed in a wonderful transparent box of filmy silk with the
+egg-bearing sheet for its roof. By nine o’clock it was of moderate
+strength and opacity, and the spider, having worked “the clock round,”
+no longer laboured continuously. Days elapsed, however, before it was
+entirely finished to the satisfaction of the spider, which remained all
+the time in close proximity to the box and could with difficulty be
+frightened away, but clung tenaciously to it when interfered with.
+
+Now this remarkable performance, which any reader endowed with
+sufficient patience may observe for himself, gives food for thought.
+The spider has never seen a cocoon constructed and has no model to
+work by, and yet it performs with absolute precision all the stages,
+in their proper succession, of a work which involves quite a number of
+different spinning operations, nor does the absence of light by which
+to work trouble it in the slightest. It seems hard to believe that this
+is not a sign of high intelligence and that the spider is probably
+quite unconscious of the object for which it has laboured so long and
+so aptly. But how otherwise explain this curious fact? If the eggs are
+removed the moment they are laid the work is continued precisely as if
+they were still there. The box is laboriously built round the place
+where they ought to be, and the spider refuses to budge from the empty
+casket, though there is no longer any treasure to guard.
+
+Clearly as the egg-laying time approaches the spider feels an
+irresistible blind impulse to perform in a definite order certain
+complicated actions. It is like a machine actuated by an internal
+spring, and in the spider’s case the internal spring is the inherited
+nervous mechanism we call instinct, which urges it to actions which it
+is not in the least necessary that it should understand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WATER-SPIDERS
+
+
+Here is the place to insert a short account of some near relations of
+_Agelena_ which we shall certainly not meet in our walk, but of which
+the mode of life is too interesting to be altogether passed over in
+silence.
+
+We have seen that the class Crustacea (crabs, shrimps, etc.) is the
+great division of the Arthropoda entirely adapted to an aquatic life,
+breathing, by means of gills, the air which is dissolved in the water.
+Insects and spiders are air-breathing, and properly belong to the land;
+yet there are many insects which pass their early stages—often the
+greater portion of their life—in the water, and some which are very
+fairly at home there when adult. Such insects often have gills when
+young, and are therefore at that period true water animals, like the
+Crustacea.
+
+The Arachnida—that division of the Arthropoda to which the spiders
+belong—include a few groups which permanently inhabit the sea, and
+could not live on land. There are even some weird creatures called
+Sea-spiders (Pycnogonids), but these do not concern us, for they are
+very far removed from the true spiders which are the subject of our
+investigations.
+
+Now the true spiders are always air-breathing, and if they venture
+into the water at all they must frequently come up to the surface
+to breathe, or else they must store up a reservoir of air beneath
+the surface of the water if they are to avoid death by drowning.
+Nevertheless some of them have been hardy enough to encroach on the
+domain of the Crustacea. Not a few are able to run freely on the
+surface of the water and even to dive occasionally for the purpose
+of seizing one of its denizens, but the number of those which have
+succeeded in really adapting themselves to aquatic life is very
+limited, and is, as far as we know, restricted to two small groups,
+both of them members of the Agelenidae.
+
+Among the coral reefs of the Indian and Pacific oceans, and also off
+the southern coast of Africa there are found spiders of the genus
+_Desis_ which spend almost all their time under the surface of the sea,
+from which they only emerge at low tide. They construct very closely
+woven tents, impermeable to sea-water, which imprison air at low tide,
+generally choosing for the purpose some cavity which has been excavated
+by one of the burrowing molluscs. Beyond this we really know very
+little about them, and there is much difference of opinion as to the
+mode in which they obtain their food. Some writers state that they only
+leave their shelters at low tide to chase small crustaceans, and that
+when placed in vessels containing sea water they are quite helpless
+and soon drown. On the other hand one observer found that a species of
+_Desis_ was quite at home in a sea-water tank, in which it swam freely
+and even attacked and fed upon a small fish. Possibly different species
+of the genus behave in different ways, some being more truly aquatic
+than others, though it is certain that the troubled waters of a coral
+sea are not a very promising field for sub-aqueous operations. We know
+a great deal more of the mode of life of those Agelenids which have
+taken to living in fresh water. Indeed the subject of the water-spider,
+_Argyroneta aquatica_, is so hackneyed that in dealing with it we shall
+probably be telling the reader much of what he knows already, but that
+possibility must be risked.
+
+There is, then, in many of our lakes, ponds and slow-flowing rivers
+with a weedy bed, a spider which has entirely taken to a water life,
+and for which it is useless to search on land. It is a docile captive,
+and consequently a favourite subject for transference to an aquarium,
+where its habits can be observed at leisure. Its first care is to
+construct beneath the water a small dome-shaped web, open below, and it
+generally selects the under surface of the leaf of a water weed for the
+purpose of anchorage, though a ready-made shelter is often furnished by
+the empty shell of some fresh-water mollusc. Its next proceeding is to
+fill this retreat with air in a very ingenious manner.
+
+While swimming about in the water the spider has a most striking
+appearance, its abdomen almost resembling a globe of quicksilver.
+This is because the body is enveloped in a bubble of air, retained
+largely by the long hairs with which it is clothed. Thus it carries its
+atmosphere about with it, and as often as not it swims with its back
+downwards, which has the effect of bringing the bulk of the air-bubble
+towards its ventral surface, where the breathing pores are situated.
+Now when the dome-shaped web is ready to be filled with air the spider
+rises to the surface, lifts its abdomen above it, and brings it down
+with a flop, thus imprisoning an extra large air-bubble which it
+embraces with its hind-legs by way of holding it more securely, and
+then, swimming rapidly down by means of its other legs to the web it
+discharges its load of air beneath the downwardly directed mouth of the
+dome.
+
+By a frequent repetition of this process the dome is at length filled
+and converted into a veritable diving-bell, in which the spider can
+exist quite comfortably until the supply of oxygen in the imprisoned
+air is exhausted and has to be renewed. From this base it issues forth
+to feed upon fresh-water insects and crustaceans, sometimes even
+attacking small fishes.
+
+The proceedings of the male _Argyroneta_ in the mating season are
+very curious. He seeks out the tent of a female and sets up his own
+establishment—generally somewhat smaller—close at hand, filling it
+with air in the approved manner. He then builds a sort of corridor
+uniting the two domes, and when this is complete he bites through
+the female dome, thus uniting the two air reservoirs by means of a
+connecting tube. Not seldom it happens that the female is in no mood
+for dalliance, and a battle royal ensues, with disastrous results to
+both domiciles and the tube that connects them. The male, however,
+is in this case well able to hold his own, for he is larger than
+the female, a phenomenon elsewhere unknown in the spider realm.
+_Argyroneta_ lives for some years, and makes two diving-bells each
+year—one near the surface in summer and one at a greater depth in
+winter. It was thought at first that one was constructed especially for
+receiving the eggs and the other as a habitation, but the egg-cocoon
+may be found in either, for there are two broods in the course of the
+year. The winter dome is of very dense silk, glossy in appearance, and
+giving the effect of a uniform sheet of silky material rather than a
+fabric. Moreover its mouth is closed, and the spider remains inactive
+within. It is this winter domicile that is most frequently found in the
+shells of molluscs. The egg-cocoon is also dome-shaped, having a convex
+upper and a flat under surface. The newly hatched young inhabit their
+mother’s tent for a time and then set forth in the water to seek their
+living and set up establishments on their own account.
+
+There is only one known species of _Argyroneta_, widely distributed
+in the temperate regions of Europe and Asia. The female is about
+half-an-inch long, of no particular beauty out of the water, its colour
+being reddish-brown, and its body and legs very hairy. There are,
+however, a few New Zealand spiders rather closely allied to it and of
+very similar habits.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CRAB-SPIDERS. MIMICRY
+
+
+All spiders can spin, but by no means all use that power to entrap
+their prey. Many have no settled abode or resting place except perhaps
+for a short time when they are rearing their young. Among these roving
+tribes, there are three groups which may engage our attention for a
+time—the Crab-spiders (Thomisidae), the Wolf-spiders (Lycosidae) and
+the Jumping spiders (Attidae).
+
+Crab-spiders are seldom seen by the ordinary observer, for their
+habits do not bring them prominently into notice, and many of them
+are of small size. They are well named, for there is something
+exceedingly crab-like in their appearance and in their actions. Their
+body is generally broad and flattened, and their legs, instead of
+being arranged fore and aft, like those of most spiders, extend more
+or less laterally, and though they can move pretty actively in any
+direction their normal method of progression is sideways. Then again,
+when frightened they cramp their legs up under their bodies in a most
+crab-like fashion and “sham dead.”
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 6. A Crab-spider (_Thomisidae_), × 3.]
+
+We saw some of these spiders on the iron railing, but their real haunts
+are among grass and herbage or upon the trunks of trees. Some are true
+rovers, hunting their prey by day and camping out wherever they happen
+to find themselves at night. Their methods are without guile—except
+that they approach their victims warily; their trust is in rapidity
+of action and superior strength. But other crab-spiders lead a less
+strenuous life; their habit is to lurk in moss, lichen, or flowers till
+an insect draws near enough to be seized without any great expenditure
+of energy.
+
+Now in the case of some of these spiders the chance of obtaining
+a meal is very greatly increased by a remarkable similarity of
+coloration between the spider and its usual hunting ground. The
+spider’s object is to remain invisible, and concealment is obviously
+more easy if its colour matches that of its environment. To a greater
+or less extent this protective coloration as it is called prevails
+universally:—spiders are seldom conspicuous objects among their usual
+surroundings, but it is only occasionally that we meet with cases of
+very remarkable colour adaptation. Two such, however, occur among
+English crab-spiders. One is a species not uncommon in the south of
+England, and fairly plentiful in the New Forest, where it is to be
+sought among the lichen on the tree trunks, where its blue-grey body,
+marked with black and white blotches makes it practically invisible
+except when in motion. It rejoices in the name of _Philodromus
+margaritatus_. The other case is that of the spider known as _Misumena
+vatia_, which is variable in colour, some specimens being yellow and
+others pink, while a variety of the species has a blood-red streak
+decorating the front part of its abdomen. If it were to choose lichen
+as a hunting ground there would be little chance of concealment, but
+it does nothing so foolish:—it hides among the petals of flowers,
+generally, but not always, among flowers more or less of its own colour.
+
+Now this phenomenon of resemblance is sometimes carried very much
+farther than a tolerable correspondence between the colour of an
+animal and its surroundings; it occasionally amounts to an apparent
+imitation, in form and in behaviour as well as in colour, of some
+other object, either animal or vegetable and in such cases we have
+examples of what is known as Mimicry. Most people have seen remarkable
+instances of this phenomenon in the “stick” and “leaf” insects of
+entomological collections. There are several different ways in which
+such a resemblance may be profitable to the imitator. Clearly it may
+be advantageous for a weak animal to be mistaken for one much more
+formidable and less likely to be attacked, or for an insect which is
+really extremely good eating to resemble closely one which birds well
+know to be unpalatable. Or again, if your line is to lie _perdu_ and
+wait for some unwary insect to come within reach, it must be a distinct
+asset to be indistinguishable from such an innocent object as a twig
+or a leaf; and the same disguise may serve you if you are the possible
+victim and you can make the would-be devourer believe that you are a
+mere vegetable.
+
+It is seldom difficult to see some such possibility of gain in the
+numerous well-known cases of insect mimicry. The wasp tribe—formidable
+with their stings—are often “mimicked”; the unpalatable Heliconid
+butterflies are “imitated” by members of edible families, and some
+insects are such exact imitations of leaves that the all-devouring army
+ants have been seen to run over them without discovering the imposition.
+
+“Mimicry” is an unfortunate term inasmuch as it seems to imply
+intentional imitation; “protective resemblance” is better. It is
+generally accounted for by the action of “natural selection” upon
+random variations. No two members of a brood are exactly alike; slight
+variations in form, size, colour, etc., are constantly occurring, and
+when the variation is a useful one the animal possessing it has a
+slightly better chance of surviving and rearing progeny, some of whom
+will probably possess the same peculiarity, perhaps even in a more
+marked degree, and will be better equipped than their neighbours in the
+struggle for life. The happy possessors of such favourable variations
+are thus in a sense “selected” by nature, and this selection, acting
+through countless generations, is thought to be the chief agent in
+bringing about the remarkable phenomenon of protective resemblance.
+
+The theory has, no doubt, been pushed too far; fanciful resemblances
+have been detected and advantages of which there is no proof are
+sometimes asserted, and moreover other possible ways of accounting for
+the facts have been too much overlooked.
+
+But however it has come about, there is a case of “mimicry” among
+crab-spiders which deserves more than a passing mention. The name
+of the spider in question is _Phrynarachne decipiens_, and it was
+accidentally discovered by Forbes when butterfly-hunting in Java. It
+spins a white patch of silk on the upper side of a leaf on which it
+places itself back-downwards, clinging to the web by means of spines on
+its legs. It then folds its legs closely and lies absolutely still. In
+this position the spider and web look precisely like the dropping of
+some bird upon the leaf; such droppings are frequently seen, and seem
+to be particularly attractive to butterflies. It was not until Forbes
+tried to catch a butterfly settled on a leaf that he found that what
+looked like excrement was really a spider which held the butterfly in
+its grasp. Even after this experience he was again deceived by the same
+species in Sumatra.
+
+There are several extremely ant-like spiders, and it is remarkable that
+some of the imitators belong to widely different spider families:—that
+is to say the resemblance has arisen independently from quite different
+starting points.
+
+It is very noteworthy that resemblance in structure is always
+accompanied by similarity of behaviour—as indeed it is bound to be
+if any benefit is to accrue to the mimic. Your resemblance to a leaf
+will deceive no one if you run wildly about, and your imitation of an
+ant will lack verisimilitude if you adopt a slow and stately method
+of progression. Ant-like spiders adopt the hurried and apparently
+undecided gait of their models, and insects which look like sticks,
+leaves, or inanimate objects all possess the power—and the habit—of
+remaining for a long time perfectly motionless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WOLF-SPIDERS
+
+
+Of the groups of wandering spiders, which spin no snare but trust to
+speed and agility for their food, the Lycosidae or wolf-spiders supply
+the best subjects for study. To begin with, they are very numerous
+at certain times of the year, some species absolutely swarming in
+woods during May and June among the leaves which fell in the previous
+autumn. During the summer months they are still in evidence, but
+as winter approaches they rapidly disappear. The swift motion and
+predaceous habits have earned them the name of wolf-spiders, but
+though they sometimes occur in incredible numbers so that it seems
+impossible to avoid treading upon them, they do not hunt in packs; each
+one is entirely concerned with his own individual quarry. They are
+moderate-sized or large spiders—commonly about half an inch long in
+this country though there are exotic species which attain an inch and
+a quarter—and in build they are very unlike the garden-spider, being
+elongate, and with the abdomen nothing like so globular.
+
+Their habits vary considerably. One genus, appropriately named
+_Pirata_, is semi-aquatic, living at the margins of rivers and ponds,
+and able to run on the surface of the water, but most of the Lycosidae
+prefer dry land—the dryer the better. Heaths, sandhills, bare and
+stony stretches of soil, even deserts, are fertile in examples of this
+group. Most of the smaller species love the sunlight, and it is often
+noticeable on a bright day, when the ground seems to be alive with
+wolf-spiders, that a chance cloud obscuring the sun will cause them to
+disappear as if by magic.
+
+Some of the small Lycosids seem to be absolute wanderers, having
+no home at all, but spending the night under a stone or any casual
+shelter, while others dig a more or less temporary hole in the ground
+into which they carry their captured prey, and in which they take
+refuge on the appearance of an enemy. The large wolf-spiders have
+permanent burrows from which they do not wander far and in the mouths
+of which they spend most of their time, on the look out for passing
+insects.
+
+Let us first catch one of the small wolf-spiders and examine it.
+This is not a very simple operation with creatures which can run so
+swiftly, but after a few attempts we induce a specimen to run up
+into a glass tube held in the line of its course. We see it to be a
+long-bodied spider thickly beset with hairs which entirely hide the
+integument of the abdomen. Its general hue will probably be a dark
+grey, and its abdomen will be decorated by a more or less distinct
+pattern due, not as in the garden spider to pigments in the skin, but
+to the coloration of the hairs. But look particularly at its eyes. A
+pocket-lens will suffice to reveal that two of them are much larger
+and much more business-like in appearance than anything _Epeira_
+had to show. These are directed forwards, being placed at the upper
+angles of the perpendicular front face, so to speak, of the animal.
+Below them, just above the jaws, are four small eyes in a transverse
+row, and behind them at some distance, on the upper surface of the
+cephalothorax, are yet another pair of moderate size. In some groups
+of spiders the eyes are not only small but have an indefinite, dull,
+ineffectual appearance; here they are clear-cut, glossy and convex;
+sight apparently counts for something in the case of the Lycosidae.
+And this is what we should expect. A sedentary spider is informed
+of the whereabouts of its prey by the sense of touch, through the
+trembling of the web, but a wolf-spider spins no web and is dependent
+on the keenness of its vision.
+
+There is a very prettily marked English Lycosid which is often found on
+sandhills, in situations particularly convenient for observation. Its
+name is _Lycosa picta_, and it is incidentally interesting as affording
+a good example of protective coloration, for the sandhill variety is
+light-coloured and very inconspicuous when stationary on the sand,
+while an inland variety not uncommon on the dark soil of heaths is of
+a much darker hue. Carefully scrutinising the firmer sand of the dunes
+on a sunny June day, I detect a number of small holes—the burrows of a
+colony of these spiders—and approaching cautiously I establish myself
+at full length at a distance of a yard or so on the side away from the
+sun, in such an attitude that I can observe closely for a considerable
+time without too much discomfort. The minutes pass and nothing
+happens, but I know that the cardinal virtue of the naturalist is
+patience, and I wait. Presently the dark circle of one of the burrows
+is obliterated—it is filled by the sand-coloured head of the spider,
+coming up to prospect. Other heads appear, and soon one spider, bolder
+than the rest, emerges bodily, and remains for a minute motionless, on
+the _qui vive_. Finding no cause for alarm, it presently begins moving
+about stealthily, and before long several members of the colony are
+busily exploring the neighbourhood. A cloud passes over the sun and all
+quickly disappear into their holes, but this time without alarm, for
+they come forth unhesitatingly when the sun shines again.
+
+It is a fascinating sight to observe these little creatures pursuing
+their operations in absolute silence under my very eyes. A few stealthy
+steps are taken, the body being so moved that the battery of eyes is
+brought to bear upon different points of the compass; a short quick run
+ensues, followed by more cautious movements. I am not fortunate enough
+to see the actual running down of a quarry, but in time I note one of
+the colony bringing home an insect in its jaws. So absorbed am I that I
+fairly jump when a horrified human voice close at hand observes “He’s
+in a fit”! I have excited the solicitude of a girls’ school which has
+approached noiselessly over the sand on their afternoon promenade, and
+stands gazing at me with as much fascination as I at the spiders. I
+hasten to reassure them, but the spell is broken, and the séance is at
+an end. Not a spider is visible.
+
+But I can still do one thing. Here is a good opportunity of finding
+out something about the burrows of these spiders. In turf the
+investigation would be difficult, but it is easy to operate in the
+tolerably firm sand where the colony has established itself.
+
+I insert a straw into one of the burrows as a guide to the exploration,
+and with a knife carefully begin to remove the sand immediately round
+it. It is lined, I find, by a very delicate and slight coating of silk,
+no more than sufficient to keep the sand particles of its walls from
+falling down into the tube. I go down for an inch and a half or so and
+find that the tube ends blindly in a sort of silk-lined pocket, but
+no spider is there! This is mysterious, for I am pretty sure that my
+spiders are at home.
+
+I go to work upon another burrow, but this time in a different way,
+digging it out bodily with its surrounding sand, and placing it on
+a sheet of paper, with which I am luckily provided, for a detailed
+examination. I can now approach it from the side, and by carefully
+removing the sand, lay bare the whole silken tube. As before there is a
+straight perpendicular burrow, ending blindly, and uninhabited, but at
+a point at about half-way down the tube I find a branch bending upward,
+so that the whole tunnel is +Y+ shaped, and at the blind end of
+this branch I find the spider.
+
+This observation suggests that the tunnels of some of our English
+wolf-spiders may be more complex than was imagined. At present nothing
+is known of their nature in the case of other species.
+
+A little later in the summer the appearance of a troop of wolf-spiders
+has undergone a marked change; almost every individual will be found
+burdened with a circular bag of eggs attached firmly to its spinnerets,
+and carried about with it in all its wanderings.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 7. Wolf-spiders; _A_, with egg-cocoons; _B_, with
+young on its back.]
+
+The “cocoon” is worth examination. It is a rather flattened sphere,
+with an equatorial line round it, giving the effect of two halves—an
+upper and a lower. The operation of making it has very seldom been
+observed, because it takes place in a closed retreat constructed for
+the purpose. McCook was fortunate enough to see something of it in the
+case of a captive _Lycosa_ which he kept in a glass jar partly filled
+with soil. Luckily the spider dug its tunnel for cocooning purposes up
+against the side of the jar, so that its interior was visible. It was
+about an inch deep and fairly wide, and its aperture was closed with
+silk.
+
+Against the perpendicular wall of soil a circular silken cushion about
+three quarters of an inch in diameter was spun, and the eggs deposited
+in the centre. The edges of the cushion were then gathered up and
+pulled over the eggs, and the bag thus formed was finished off with an
+external layer of spinning work on the two halves of the sphere, the
+seam or “equator” being left thin for the exit of the young spiders.
+The _Lycosa_ then attached the cocoon to its spinnerets and proceeded
+to bite away the silken sheet which sealed the burrow. The whole
+operation lasted about four and a half hours.
+
+Thenceforward, till the young are hatched, the wolf-spider never quits
+her egg-bag, which she carries about on all her expeditions attached by
+threads to the spinnerets. Garden-spiders die soon after laying their
+eggs and never see their progeny, but here we have a case of maternal
+solicitude persisting for many days, and the Peckhams seized upon it as
+a good subject for investigating the subject of the memory of spiders.
+If the cocoon were removed from the spinnerets, after how long an
+interval would it be recognised by the mother?
+
+A _Pirata_ was selected for experiment. It offered great resistance
+to the removal of the cocoon, seizing it with its jaws and trying to
+escape with it. When it had been taken away the mother displayed great
+uneasiness, searching for it in all directions. It was returned to her
+after an hour and a half, when she received it eagerly and immediately
+attached it in the usual position.
+
+From three others of the same species the cocoons were removed and
+restored after thirteen, fourteen and a half, and sixteen hours
+respectively. All remembered them and took them back immediately. But
+twenty-four hours seemed to be the extreme limit of their memory;
+after that interval two of the mothers refused to have anything to
+do with their cocoons, while the third only resumed hers, slowly and
+without any enthusiasm, after it had been placed before her seven
+times in succession. Some other species seemed to possess a rather
+longer memory, but the experimenters found no Lycosid constant in her
+affection for so long a period as forty-eight hours.
+
+We have said that Lycosid spiders see comparatively well; yet, if
+they are placed within an inch or two of their cocoons they may be
+quite a long time finding them. This is very puzzling until it is
+considered that its habitual position is such that the spider never
+sees it. She never has seen it since its construction, and does not
+in the least recognise it by sight. Spiders of other groups, where
+the female remains near but detached from the cocoon, are not at the
+same disadvantage, and if the cocoon is removed to a short distance
+the mother will go straight to it and bring it back. The wolf-spider
+only knows the _feel_ of the cocoon; she may pass close by it without
+recognition, but as soon as she touches it the cocoon is immediately
+resumed—if the interval of separation has not been too great.
+
+But is it necessary to restore to the spider her own cocoon? Will not
+that of another spider serve as well? Certainly it will; a wolf-spider
+will eagerly adopt the cocoon of a spider even belonging to a different
+genus, if not greatly unlike her own in size. Nay, even a ball of pith
+of the same size will be attached with alacrity to the spinnerets,
+though if offered a choice between a cocoon and a pith ball the
+spider, after some hesitation, selects the real article. One spider
+even accepted a cocoon into which a leaden shot had been inserted,
+making it many times its original weight. She could hardly crawl with
+her new burden, but stuck to it gallantly, and when several efforts
+to secure it to her spinnerets had proved ineffectual she carried
+it about between her jaws and the third pair of legs. Again we find
+the intelligence of the spider distinctly limited, but its powerful
+instincts are equal to all ordinary requirements. Nature does not,
+as a rule, play extravagant pranks, such as interchanging cocoons or
+substituting for them pith balls and leaden pellets.
+
+The famous Tarantula is a wolf-spider, though in America,
+unfortunately, the name has been quite wrongly applied to the members
+of an entirely different group. Everyone has heard of its deadly
+repute, and of the myth that its bite can only be cured by the wild
+tarantula dance or tarantella. It is one of the large Lycosids of
+southern Europe. These, as we have said, are much less nomadic than
+the smaller species, but have a permanent home, from which they do not
+wander far afield. They prefer waste, arid places, and their burrows
+are simple cylindrical tubes with the upper portion lined by silk, the
+mouth being often surmounted by a sort of rampart of particles of soil
+mingled with small pieces of wood collected in the neighbourhood. The
+spider lurks in the mouth of the tube where its glistening eyes can be
+distinctly seen. If an insect ventures near it rushes out and secures
+it; if alarmed, it retreats instantly to the bottom of the burrow.
+
+That most fascinating of all entomological writers, J. H. Fabre, made
+some observations on a tarantula of southern France which well deserve
+attention. Colonies of the spider were numerous in his neighbourhood,
+and he set himself to procure some specimens. Old writers assert that
+if a straw be inserted into the burrow the spider will seize it and
+hold it so firmly that it may be drawn forth. Fabre found this method
+exciting, but uncertain in its results. Another plan which had been
+advocated was to approach warily and cut off the retreat of a spider by
+plunging the blade of a knife into the soil below it and so cutting off
+its retreat, but this required very rapid action, and was, moreover,
+apt to be prevented by the presence of stones in the soil. He devised
+a new scheme. He provided himself with a number of “bumble” bees in
+narrow glass tubes—about the width of the spider burrows. Repairing
+to a tarantula colony he would present the open end of the tube to
+the mouth of a burrow. The liberated bee, seeing a hole in the ground
+exactly suitable for its own purposes, would enter it with very little
+hesitation. There would be a loud buzz and then instant silence.
+Inserting a pair of forceps into the hole, Fabre would then withdraw
+the bee with the spider clinging tenaciously to it. In all cases the
+death of the bee was instantaneous, though the closest examination of
+its dead body revealed no wound.
+
+Now Fabre was fresh from his wonderful studies of the habits of the
+solitary wasps, which provide their young with insects stung in such
+a way as to cause paralysis but not death. In their case the problem
+was to secure food for their larvae which should remain fresh for
+many days, an instinct taught them to solve it in the most remarkable
+manner. The problem of the spider was different. It was a case of
+killing instantly, or being killed; a merely wounded bee is as
+formidable as one unharmed. What Fabre desired to know was this: did
+the spider trust to one invariable deadly stroke in dealing with the
+bee, as the solitary wasp, according to its species, had been found to
+act always precisely in the same way in paralysing its victim?
+
+To settle this point the spider must be seen at work, and the obvious
+plan seemed to be to enclose a bee and a tarantula in a glass
+vessel and see what would happen. But nothing happened at all. The
+spider, away from its burrow, refused to attack. The equally matched
+antagonists treated each other with the greatest respect and only
+evinced a desire to keep as far apart as possible. Even when placed in
+the same tube both acted on the defensive, and no light was thrown on
+the problem.
+
+But Fabre’s ingenuity was equal to the occasion. It occurred to
+him that to use as a bait an insect of burrowing habits had been a
+tactical error; if instead of a bumble bee some other insect, equally
+formidable, but not attracted by holes in the ground, were selected for
+the purpose, the spider might be induced to rush forth and reveal its
+method of attack.
+
+A large carpenter bee—_Xylocopa_—was chosen and the mouth of
+the tube containing it was presented as before to the mouth of the
+tarantula tunnel. The insect showed no disposition to enter the tunnel,
+but buzzed in the tube outside. Many burrows were tested before any
+luck attended the investigator, but at length a spider responded.
+There was a fierce rush, a clinch, and the bee was dead; the operation
+was too rapid to follow, but the spider’s fangs remained where they
+had struck—embedded just behind the insect’s neck. The experiment
+was repeated until sufficient cases had been witnessed to establish
+the fact that the tarantula dealt no random stroke but with unerring
+precision and lightning rapidity plunged its fangs into the vital spot.
+Fabre quaintly exclaims “J’étais ravi de ce savoir assassin; j’étais
+dédommagé de mon épiderme rôti au soleil!”
+
+Examples of the same species of tarantula kept in captivity threw
+further light of the habits of the group. These large Lycosids live for
+years, and though stay-at-homes when _rangé_ so-to-speak, they are at
+first wanderers on the face of the earth. They do not settle down and
+burrow till the autumn just after they have attained maturity. These
+young adults are only about half the size they will eventually attain,
+but the burrows are enlarged at need, so that it is customary to find
+tubes of two sizes—those of the newly established small females, and
+those of the fully-grown females of two or more years old.
+
+Curiously enough, if disturbed, they entirely decline to burrow
+unless it be the proper season for that operation, but remain inert
+and helpless on the surface till they die. If, however, a tunnel is
+provided for them, they enter it at once and adapt it to their needs.
+
+The legs take no part in the burrowing process, which is entirely
+carried out by the jaws. With infinite labour small particles of
+earth are dislodged and carried by the mandibles to be dropped at a
+considerable distance from the nest.
+
+The parapet round the mouth of the tube is in nature usually quite
+a small erection, but this seems to be due to the fact that only
+a small amount of suitable material is available in the immediate
+neighbourhood, and the spiders will not go far afield. In captivity,
+when abundance of material was supplied, they attained a height of two
+inches. Small stones, sticks, and strands of wool cut into lengths of
+one inch and of various colours were placed within reach, and all were
+used in building the parapet. Comparatively huge pebbles were rolled up
+for a foundation, and fragments of earth and pieces of wool entirely
+irrespective of colour were bound together by irregular spinning work.
+
+On sunny days the spiders would crouch behind the parapet with their
+eyes above its level. To distant insects they paid no attention, but
+if one approached within leaping distance, it was pounced upon with
+unfailing accuracy.
+
+In due season the captives laid their eggs and enclosed them in the
+regulation cocoon which they attached to their spinnerets, never
+parting from them thenceforward, though considerably hampered by them
+in their movements up and down the tube. But a very remarkable change
+now took place in their behaviour at the mouth of the tunnel. In sunny
+weather, instead of remaining, as Fabre puts it, “_accoudé_” on the
+parapet, they reversed their position, raised their egg-cocoons with
+their hind legs, and slowly and deliberately turned them about, so that
+every part in succession should be exposed to the sun’s rays.
+
+We now come to a remarkable habit possessed by all the Lycosidae.
+When the young are ready to leave the cocoon they find an exit at
+the thinner equatorial seam, and proceed immediately to climb on to
+the back of the mother, clinging firmly to her covering of hairs.
+If a wanderer, she carries them thus on all her expeditions; if a
+stay-at-home, they accompany her up and down her tube. They are often
+dislodged—indeed, when alarmed, they scatter for the moment, but when
+the peril has passed they immediately swarm up the maternal legs to
+their former position.
+
+Now in the case of the tarantula, it is seven months before they are
+able to fend for themselves. Meanwhile they eat nothing, and look on
+with indifference while their mother feeds. She not only carries them
+willingly, but exhibits solicitude when deprived of them, but she shows
+no discrimination as to her own offspring, and is quite content with
+those of another spider. The young, when brushed off, climb the legs
+of the nearest female, and a spider may thus be laden with thrice her
+proper load without any protest. They form a layer two or three deep,
+and can then only find room by covering the whole of her back. They
+nevertheless take care not to obscure her vision by covering her eyes.
+
+Two mother tarantulas, each with her young on her back, came into
+contact, and a battle _à outrance_ took place. One was slain, but the
+double brood, scattered by the conflict, on its cessation climbed on
+to the back of the victor, and remained calmly in position while she
+proceeded to dine in leisurely fashion on the vanquished!
+
+In March, seven months after hatching, the young were ready to
+start life for themselves. Their first action was to climb to the
+highest points attainable, whence they set sail in the manner already
+described, and were borne gently away in the air.
+
+We can hardly leave the tarantula without saying something on the
+vexed question of spider venom. All over the world there are certain
+particular spiders whose bite is especially feared. Among them are
+the “Tarantula” and the “Malmignate” of southern Europe, the “Vancoho”
+of Madagascar, the “Katipo” of New Zealand, and the “Queue rouge”
+of the West Indies. Quite an extensive literature has arisen around
+the subject but its perusal leaves one not much wiser than one was
+before. Circumstantial accounts of deaths from the bite of a spider
+are countered by the assertions of experimenters that they have
+allowed themselves to be bitten repeatedly by the same species without
+suffering any inconvenience. There is at all events some basis for
+the popular view in the fact that all spiders possess a poison gland
+which is analogous to that of the snake inasmuch as it opens near the
+tip of the fang which is plunged into the animal attacked. In the case
+of the large, powerful spiders of the family Mygalidae, and perhaps
+in the tarantulas the effects of the bite on higher animals are not
+negligible, and clearly exceed the results of a mere puncture. A young
+sparrow and a mole bitten by Fabre’s tarantula in spots by no means
+vital died within a few hours. But it is a very remarkable fact that
+many of the most dreaded spiders are neither large nor powerful. The
+“Malmignate,” the “Vancoho,” the “Katipo,” and the “Queue rouge” are
+all members of the comparatively weak-jawed Theridiidae, and their only
+striking characteristic is vivid coloration, all being marked with
+red spots. It is probable that their deadly powers are almost entirely
+fabulous; and that they have been singled out as particularly dangerous
+merely because of their conspicuous appearance.
+
+The smaller species are certainly harmless as far as man is concerned,
+and it is even disputed whether their poison plays much part in
+the ordinary slaying of insects. The very inconsistent results of
+experiments may be due to some control exercised by the spider over the
+output of poison. There is no proof that its ejection is automatic,
+and it is quite possible that the spider is economical in its use. Or
+again, in some of the cases of innocuous biting, the supply of venom
+may have run short.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JUMPING SPIDERS
+
+
+We are not in the land of the jumping spiders or Attidae, and our few
+and sober-coloured examples of the group give but a feeble idea of the
+Attid fauna of tropical countries where these creatures abound and
+often rival the “ruby-tail” flies in the brilliancy of their hues.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 8. Salticus scenicus, female, × 4.]
+
+It is one of the largest groups, numbering several thousand species,
+but the British list includes barely thirty, and most of these are
+of rare occurrence, or at all events exceedingly unlikely to be met
+with by any but the most energetic collector. Indeed it may be said
+that there is only one British species which we may look forward with
+tolerable confidence to finding upon some sunny wall or fence in the
+summer, in whatever part of the country we may be. This is _Salticus
+scenicus_, sometimes called the Zebra Spider. Though absolutely
+dowdy in comparison with most of its tropical cousins, it is a not
+unattractive little creature, and illustrates sufficiently well the
+characteristics of its tribe. Armed with a pocket-lens, a glass tube
+or two, and—more necessary still—the very largest amount of patience
+we can summon, we go in quest of the zebra spider. A tarred fence is
+a good hunting ground, because the spider, if present, is readily
+seen, but if this is drawn blank we must have recourse to a wall, where
+sharper eyesight will be required.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 9. “Face” of an Attid spider, shewing the anterior
+eyes and the chelicerae.]
+
+Our quarry is of small size, not more than a quarter of an inch long
+in the body, which resembles that of the wolf-spiders in build, the
+abdomen not rising above the level of the fore-body or cephalothorax.
+It is thickly clothed with short hairs—black, white, and grey—so
+arranged as to show oblique zebra-like stripes on either side of the
+abdomen. The legs are short and robust, very different from the long
+thin limbs of the garden-spider; especially strong are the fore-legs.
+The head is broad and square, with a high perpendicular forehead, but
+the most remarkable features are the eyes.
+
+On the vertical front are four splendid eyes. The wolf-spider’s eyes
+were large, but these, in comparison, are immense, especially the
+median pair. Their axes are directed straight in front. Four other eyes
+are placed on the top of the head, far apart from each other, the
+more forward pair very small, the hind pair of moderate size. In some
+Attid spiders these great anterior eyes are wonderful objects under
+the microscope, deep sea-green in hue and fringed with coloured hairs.
+They form a veritable battery which the spider brings to bear upon the
+object of its chase. Human eyes, to match them in comparative size,
+would literally have to be as large as saucers!
+
+If we are in luck, we soon descry a _Salticus_ showing up boldly
+against the black surface of the fence, and to set ourselves to watch
+its antics attentively. One thing strikes us at once; it is quite at
+home on a perpendicular surface—nay, on the under side of a horizontal
+beam, for that matter. Now a garden-spider would have great difficulty
+in maintaining itself in such a position unless well supplied with
+silken lines to which to cling; evidently there is some difference
+in the structure of the feet of these spiders which may be worth
+investigating later on.
+
+Also we notice some odd tricks of movement in the jumping spider;
+a curious way of exploring the surface on which it is working by a
+succession of short runs alternately with periods of absolute stillness
+as though on the _qui vive_; a noticeable freedom of movement between
+the fore- and the hind-bodies so that its battery of eyes may be
+directed to this side or that; sometimes an elevation of fore part as
+though for the purpose of obtaining a wider view.
+
+We may have to wait long before we see it successful in the chase. It
+will often patiently explore a large area, testing the surface with
+its palps as it goes, without any obvious reward. It conscientiously
+searches all depressions and crannies, and, sometimes remains in them
+for a considerable time—perhaps to devour some minute creature which
+did not call into play its special methods of attack. At last it sights
+a small insect which has alighted on the fence a few inches away; we
+see it turn its head in that direction and remain motionless. Soon it
+begins to edge nearer in a stealthy manner, striving to approach its
+prey from behind, till, with a sudden spring, it pounces on its back.
+Not always is the spring successful; often the insect sees its peril
+at the last moment and takes to wing. But in this case, how does the
+spider avoid a fall? We see, what we had not noticed before, that it is
+anchored to the fence by a silken line; indeed all the time it has been
+hunting it has been trailing behind it an exceedingly fine thread of
+silk which it has attached at frequent intervals to the fence, so that
+it can check its fall at will in the case of accident. At the right
+angle, we may see the delicate filaments glistening in the sun over the
+surface of its explorations. The garden-spider entangles its prey in a
+web, the wolf-spider runs it down by sheer strength and speed, but the
+jumping spider stalks it like a Red Indian.
+
+The actions of the spider make it quite evident that its power of sight
+is well developed. Mr and Mrs Peckham, whose remarkable observations
+on the mating habits of jumping spiders must presently be considered,
+established friendly relations with some of their captives which became
+so tame as to jump on their hands and take food from their fingers.
+They frequently induced them to jump from a finger of one hand to one
+of the other, gradually increasing the distance up to eight inches.
+They also twice observed a male chasing a female upon a table covered
+with jars, books and boxes. “The female would leap rapidly from one
+object to another, or would dart over the edge of a book or a box so
+as to be out of sight. In this position she would remain quiet for a
+few moments and then, creeping to the edge, would peer over to see if
+the male were still pursuing her. If he happened not to be hidden, she
+would seem to see him, even when ten or twelve inches away, and would
+quickly draw back.”
+
+Moreover that they have the ability to discriminate colours has been
+shown by their behaviour when imprisoned in cages consisting of a
+series of communicating chambers each with a glass top of a different
+hue. They show a marked preference for the red chamber under these
+circumstances while the least attractive colour seems to be blue.
+
+It has been known for a long time that the males of many kinds of
+birds—and especially of the more ornamental species—are accustomed
+to perform the most extraordinary antics in the presence of the female
+at the time of mating. The Peckhams made the unexpected discovery that
+precisely similar “love dances” took place in the case of the jumping
+spiders. Even the comparatively sober-coloured “zebra spider” performs
+a weird _pas seul_ in courting its mate, but its display is feeble
+compared with that of some of the more ornate of the Attidae.
+
+Certain isolated observations on captive jumping spiders led these
+observers to suspect that the mating habits were unusual and worthy of
+accurate investigation, and they laid their plans accordingly, taking
+their summer holiday a month earlier than usual, so as to miss nothing
+of the pairing season, and including in their party an artist whose
+drawings should furnish an indubitable record of the attitudes assumed
+by the male spiders in their evolutions.
+
+On arriving at their destination they found a small species, _Saitis
+pulex_, with no great claims to remarkable beauty, mature, and ready
+to pair. A female was placed in one of the experimental boxes which
+had been provided in advance, and a male was admitted on the following
+day. He sighted her at a distance of twelve inches, and showing signs
+of excitement, advanced to within about four inches and then performed
+a most ludicrous dance—something in the nature of a “highland fling,”
+in a semicircle before her, she, in the meantime, moving in such a
+manner as to keep him always in view. His exact behaviour was this:
+he extended all the legs—and the palp—on the left side, folding the
+first two legs and the palp of the right side under him, and leaning
+over sideways so far as nearly to lose his balance, and in this
+attitude he sidled along towards the lowered (right) side till he had
+described an arc of about two inches; then the position was instantly
+reversed, the right legs being extended and the left folded under, and
+the arc retraced. A male was seen to repeat this performance 111 times!
+He then approached nearer and when almost within reach “whirled madly
+around and around her, she joining and whirling with him,” after which
+she accepted him as a mate.
+
+The next species to engage attention was an _Icius_. It was noteworthy
+that although the neighbourhood was well known to the experimenters
+they had never met with this spider before, but for a few days it
+swarmed on the fences just as birds are known to assemble from all
+quarters for the so-called “love dances.” After the mating season the
+spiders wandered off into the woods again and were seen no more.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 10. A male Attid spider (Astia vittata) dancing
+before the female. (After Peckham.)]
+
+The performance was much as before, but the spiders assumed different
+attitudes. The female lay flat on the ground with her front legs
+raised; the male danced on the six hind legs, with the front legs
+lowered and meeting at the tips. The males of this species were
+exceedingly quarrelsome, sparring frantically whenever they met, but
+their battles were entirely bloodless. “Indeed,” say the observers,
+“having watched hundreds of seemingly terrible battles between the
+males of this and other species, the conclusion has been forced upon us
+that they are all sham affairs, gotten up for the purpose of displaying
+before the females, who commonly stand by, interested spectators.” In
+the case of one species, after two weeks of hard fighting between the
+males, the Peckhams were unable to discover one wounded warrior. The
+females, on the other hand, were often really formidable. _Phidippus
+morsitans_ is an example. The male has handsome front legs, thickly
+fringed with white hairs, and he displays these to the best advantage
+in his love antics. Two males supplied in succession to one female “had
+offered her only the merest civilities when she leaped upon them and
+killed them.”
+
+In the case of most of the spiders whose love-dances were investigated,
+the chief ornamentation of the male consisted of fringes of white or
+coloured hairs on the face, the palps, and the front legs, and they
+kept these parts always before the females, displaying their glories
+to the utmost advantage. The male of _Habrocestum splendens_, however,
+possesses an extremely brilliant abdomen, and, lest anything of its
+beauty should be lost upon the object of his admiration, he varies the
+ordinary performance in a remarkable manner. He often pauses in the
+dance, and, raising his abdomen, “strikes an attitude” in which he
+remains motionless for half a minute. Moreover he frequently turns his
+back on the female—a most unusual occurrence in the course of these
+antics.
+
+The males of one species, _Philaeus militaris_, were observed to
+capture and keep guard over young females, which they imprisoned in
+webs spun for the purpose until they had undergone their last moult and
+were mature, chasing away all intruders in the interval.
+
+The jumping spiders furnish a much stronger case for those who believe
+that ornamentation plays an important part in sexual selection
+than do either birds or butterflies. With regard to the birds it
+has been objected, first, that there is little evidence that the
+females pay much attention to the antics of the males, and secondly,
+that practically all the male birds pair, whatever their claims to
+pre-eminent beauty. Now in the case of the jumping spiders the females
+follow the performances of the males with the utmost attention, and
+seeing that the males are present in large numbers when the females
+begin to appear, the latter are certainly in the position to reject
+such mates as do not please them.
+
+The mere relation of the results of this most interesting investigation
+conveys no hint of the unwearied patience and close observation
+necessary to those who would surprise the secrets of nature. One is
+apt to infer that it is only needful to place some spiders in a box,
+establish oneself in an arm chair, and ring on the performance, so
+to speak. The Peckhams modestly remark: “The courtship of spiders is
+a very tedious affair. We shall condense our descriptions as much as
+possible, but it must be noted that we often worked four or five hours
+a day for a week in getting a fair idea of the habits of a single
+species.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THERAPHOSID SPIDERS
+
+
+It is quite impossible in a work like the present to deal with the
+classification of spiders. About forty families have been established,
+some of them of vast extent, the Attidae, for example, including some
+four thousand species. The great French arachnologist, M. E. Simon,
+has occupied 2,000 quarto pages in defining the families, sub-families
+and genera, without concerning himself with the species at all! It is,
+however, desirable, that the attention of the reader should be called
+to the primary division of the group, according to which all spiders
+are either _Araneae verae_ (true spiders) or _Araneae theraphosae_
+(theraphosid spiders.)
+
+Now these two kinds of spider may readily be distinguished by a single
+easily observable characteristic, the nature of the mandibles or
+_chelicerae_; but it is necessary to describe the spider’s mandibles
+before the difference can be appreciated.
+
+Their nature is perhaps best explained by saying that each mandible
+is not unlike a penknife with a single small blade, rather more than
+half open when in use, closed when at rest. The handle of the penknife
+is certainly in most cases very short and thick, and the blade not
+really a blade at all, for it has no cutting edge, but is a “fang” or
+piercing instrument generally somewhat curved, and with a sharp point.
+The “blade” is, moreover, perforated by a tube which comes from the
+poison-gland, situated in the thickened “handle,” or in the spider’s
+head, so that poison can be forced into the wound which it inflicts.
+
+Now take two penknives with the blades half open and hold them so that
+they hang with the hinge downward and with the blades directed towards
+each other; it is clear that the blades may be made to pierce an object
+situated between them by moving the handles laterally, the object being
+attacked simultaneously on either side. This is the arrangement in the
+true spiders, whose jaws move sideways, though they do not always hang
+perpendicularly, but are more often somewhat slanted forwards.
+
+To represent the jaws of a theraphosid spider the penknives must be
+arranged differently. Place the handles horizontally and parallel to
+each other, with the blades directed downwards and also parallel. They
+will now work not sideways, but up and down, and both fangs will pierce
+the victim from above. In a word, the true spiders have jaws which can
+be separated or brought together, and which tend to meet in the object
+into which they are plunged, while the jaws of theraphosid spiders work
+in parallel vertical planes, and strike downwards.
+
+All the spiders which have so far concerned us are _Araneae verae_,
+and we have incidentally had occasion to note some of the principal
+families of that division—Epeiridae (or Argiopidae as some prefer to
+call them), Theridiidae, Agelenidae, Thomisidae, Lycosidae and Attidae.
+
+Indeed there is only one theraphosid spider that there is the least
+likelihood of our coming across in this country. Their true home is
+in hotter climes, and though stragglers from their army are not rare
+in the warmer portions of temperate regions, they abound only in
+tropical countries. They include the “Trap-door” spiders, common in
+the Mediterranean region and in many other widely distant parts of the
+world, and the great “Bird-eating” spiders of the tropics—the spiders
+which are quite wrongly but universally alluded to in America as
+Tarantulas.
+
+The single British example is well worth the study of any reader who is
+fortunate enough to come across it. But he must first catch his hare,
+for _Atypus affinis_ (or _piceus_ as it used to be called) does not
+grow in every hedge-row, nor is it easy to find it where it does occur.
+Most of the localities recorded are in the south of England. It is a
+thick-set dark-coloured spider about half an inch in length, and with
+very thick, powerful mandibles, which, as we have seen, work vertically.
+
+Its nest is a loosely-woven tubular structure, which partly lines a
+more or less vertical hole in the ground and partly lies exposed on the
+surface, but which does not present any obvious opening for entrance
+and exit.
+
+The situation chosen is generally a sloping sandy bank covered with
+vegetation. The burrow is about eight inches in depth and about three
+quarters of an inch in diameter. Near the bottom it narrows and then
+expands into a somewhat wider chamber where the spider lives and
+constructs its egg-cocoon. The portion of the tube above the ground is
+sometimes longer but more often shorter than the buried portion, and it
+tapers to a closed end.
+
+Mr Joshua Brown, who first found this spider near Hastings in 1856,
+took home several of the tubes with the spiders inside. He could find
+no opening, and though the spiders moved up and down the tubes they
+did not emerge. On tearing a tube open he found no remains of insects
+inside, but in one case he came across a worm, partly within, and
+partly outside the lower part of the tube, and apparently partially
+devoured by the spider.
+
+The same species is not rare in France and M. Simon’s observations on
+it closely agreed with those of Mr Brown. He believed that the spider
+chiefly depended for its food on earthworms which, in the course of
+their burrowings, came casually into its neighbourhood. Since these
+observations, however, considerable light has been thrown on the habits
+of the spider by Enock, who found colonies on Hampstead Heath and near
+Woking. His investigations extended over several years, and wonderful
+patience was needed before the secrets of this curious animal were
+divulged.
+
+It appears that the female, when once established, never leaves the
+nest at all! The aerial portion of the web was always a puzzle, but now
+we know, thanks to Enock, that it constitutes the whole hunting ground
+of the spider. Like promises and pie-crust it is apparently made to
+be broken. If it is accidentally brushed against by a passing insect
+the spider is instantly aware of the fact, rushes to the spot, and
+transfixes the intruder with its powerful mandibles. It turns on its
+back to do this, and strikes the insect from behind, afterwards pulling
+its prey through the weft and into the tube by main force. It drags it
+to the bottom of the tunnel, makes sure of its death, and immediately
+returns and repairs the rent.
+
+Insects were held against the tube, and the spider, if hungry, accepted
+them at once; if replete however, it always gave a tug at the tube,
+which retracted a portion of it into the burrow—a curious action
+which Enock quite learnt to interpret as the “I don’t want any more”
+movement.
+
+The males made nests exactly like the females, but shallower, and they
+left them to search for their mates, leaving the ends open. On finding
+a female nest, they “serenaded” by tapping with their palps, and after
+some delay, tore open the web and entered. By and by the female came
+up and repaired the rent, first pulling the edges together with her
+jaws and then uniting them with silk from her spinnerets. In one case
+nothing more was seen of the male for nine months, when his empty skin
+was observed at the end of the tube. After nine months of connubial
+bliss his consort had devoured him!
+
+In the autumn and spring, eggs and newly-hatched young were often found
+in the nests. Late in March a small hole, 1/16 inch in diameter, was
+noticed at the end of some of the webs, and presently the young began
+to emerge—never to return to the nest. They immediately climbed the
+highest objects at hand, and some were seen to be carried off by the
+breeze.
+
+Enock found, by an ingenious experiment, that the sand which is
+incorporated in the aerial part of the tube—no doubt to render it
+inconspicuous—is obtained from within, and not from outside the nest.
+Carefully covering the exposed web, he powdered the ground all round
+it with red brick-dust, but the particles which the spider embedded
+in the web were of brown sand, evidently obtained from the bottom of
+the burrow and not from the surrounding surface. But in the case of
+some newly-dispersed young spiders he was able to see this operation
+performed. The first part of the nest to be made was the aërial
+portion, at the foot of which the digging was commenced. Particles of
+sand were brought up in the jaws of the young spider and pushed into
+the weft of the tube. Occasionally the jaws were thrust through the
+delicate web and particles from without were seized and _pulled_ into
+the silken fabric.
+
+It is sad to have to relate that such young spiders as did not emerge
+from the web within a reasonable time were devoured by their unnatural
+parent. It sometimes happened that a change of weather rendered it
+unsuitable for the departure of the young, and in this case the mother
+closed up the exit-hole, and retired to feed upon her offspring! Thus,
+though there were as many as a hundred and forty in a brood, a good
+many perished at the outset, and the ants in the surrounding soil
+accounted for some of the rest.
+
+The Atypidae form a small outlying group of the Theraphosid spiders and
+are able to live in colder regions than most of their relatives. The
+great bulk of the division belong to the family Aviculariidae.
+
+Some of the Aviculariidae are not unlike Agelena in their mode of life,
+spinning a dense sheet-web terminating in a tube, and entrapping
+their prey. Far the greater number, however, as far as their habits
+are known at all, are earth dwellers, either inhabiting more or less
+complex burrows of their own, or sheltering under stones or in chance
+cavities by day and emerging at night to seek food in the immediate
+neighbourhood of their hiding-places. Some of them are quite small, but
+the majority are large robust spiders, of formidable appearance. The
+largest known spider, _Theraphosa leblondi_, is found in South America,
+and its body measures more than three and a half inches in length.
+Few spiders have attracted more attention than the fabricators of the
+curious “trap-door” nests, which are common in the Riviera, and indeed
+in all the countries bordering the Mediterranean. But abundant though
+they are, they are extremely difficult to find, and it is generally
+only by chance that their existence is detected.
+
+The Tarantula occasionally closes the mouth of her tunnel with a sheet
+of silk in which are encrusted the _débris_ of insects or particles of
+soil. She does this at the time when she is spinning her cocoon and
+any intrusion is particularly inopportune, but she does it also on
+other occasions which are not so easily accounted for. A reason which
+would naturally occur to us would be the exclusion of excessive rain or
+excessive sunshine, but the facts, unfortunately, do not accord with
+this explanation.
+
+Now, however desirable occasional closure may be, a permanent door
+would hamper the tarantula in her hunting operations, but the habits
+of the trap-door spider are different, and she closes her retreat
+with a wonderful hinged lid or “trap-door.” And the commonest form
+of trap-door is also the most perfect, being thick and tapering, and
+fitting accurately into the bevelled mouth of the tube like a stopper
+in the mouth of a bottle. It is made of alternate layers of spider
+silk and earth, and is free for more than half its circumference, the
+remaining portion of the surface disc being attached to the side of the
+tube by a flexible hinge of silk. Moggridge dissected the door of a
+full-sized tunnel into fourteen graduated discs. The smallest—and of
+course the lowest—represented the first door ever made by the spider,
+and the successively larger discs indicated the stages at which its
+increasing size rendered an enlargement of the tube—and therefore of
+the door—necessary.
+
+The spider always interweaves vegetable matter from the
+neighbourhood into each new disc, so that, as a rule, it is entirely
+indistinguishable from its surroundings when closed; and not only
+_dead_ vegetable matter, for if the tube is situated amongst moss, moss
+grows upon the lid. From our previous experience, however, we shall
+not be surprised to find that blind instinct and not forethought is
+responsible for this action. Moggridge removed the lid of a tunnel
+and also cleared the ground immediately round it of all vegetation;
+nevertheless, when the spider made a new door, it covered it with moss
+taken from the undisturbed vegetation beyond, so that the trap-door
+was now conspicuous as a green oasis in a sandy desert! And on another
+occasion a spider interwove fragments of scarlet fabric left purposely
+at hand into the lid of its tunnel. It is clear, therefore, that the
+decoration of the door is due to an instinct which impels the spider
+to utilise any material of the neighbourhood without any regard to the
+effect produced.
+
+The tube is densely lined with silk, which affords its architect a
+secure foot-hold, and if any enemy attempts to open the lid from
+without, the spider resists with all its strength—which is not
+inconsiderable—clinging on to its under surface with its front legs
+and jaws, while the claws of its other feet grasp the silken walls of
+the tube.
+
+The other type of trap-door is less interesting and much more
+elementary, consisting simply of a wafer-like sheet of silk mixed with
+earth and vegetable matter, but it is a curious fact that while all
+known trap-door nests of the cork type are simple tubes, the burrows
+with wafer doors are often much more complex. In some cases there
+is a branch tube, like that constructed by _Lycosa picta_, leaving
+the main tunnel at a depth of some three inches, and reaching the
+surface perhaps two inches away from the trap-door, so that the whole
+excavation is +Y+-shaped. This branch tube is permanently closed
+by a thin sheet of silk and earth, which, however, it would not be
+difficult to break through if it were urgent for the spider to escape
+while the enemy was exploring the main tunnel.
+
+But a more interesting case is the occurrence of another trap-door
+some way down the tube. If the tube is unbranched, this forms merely a
+second line of defence if the outer door is forced, but in the case of
+a branched tube the additional door hangs at the fork of the +Y+,
+and is so shaped as to form a perfect valve, so that the spider, by
+holding it against one or the other side of the tunnel, can connect the
+bottom limb of the +Y+ with either fork at will, leaving to the
+intruder a beautifully smooth-lined tube to explore, with no hint of
+the possibility of escape in other directions.
+
+There are sometimes other complications in the ramification of the
+tube, but these need not detain us. Each species of spider adheres to
+its own particular type of architecture, and may safely—in a given
+neighbourhood—be identified by its nest.
+
+As with the Lycosidae, the burrowing is all done by the mandibles,
+but here the first joint—the handle of the penknife—is of more
+importance than the blade or fang. Indeed the burrowing species of the
+Aviculariidae may be distinguished from the rest by their mandibles,
+which are provided in front with a _rastellum_, or row of teeth for
+digging. A trap-door spider, then, does not go to work like a rabbit,
+or a terrier, scratching and kicking away the earth as it digs; it
+laboriously dislodges particles of soil with its powerful mandibles,
+and carries away the loosened fragments to deposit them at a distance.
+
+The trap-door spiders of the Mediterranean region are nocturnal
+creatures, and little is known of their habits. Erber relates that a
+species found in the island of Tinos comes out at night, fixes open the
+trap-door with a few threads, and spins a web near its nest to entrap
+passing insects, clearing away any trace of it before the dawn. In the
+case of some Chinese and also some Australian species observers allege
+that they frequently wander from their nests in the day-time.
+
+A Californian species was able to leave its nest when the trap-door was
+weighted with three ounces of lead. On re-entering, it seized the edge
+of the door with its mandibles, and, raising it slightly, inserted its
+front legs. It then turned round and slipped backwards into the tube.
+It always resisted the forcible opening of its door to the last moment,
+when it let go and slid into the tube “as though going down a well.”
+
+The larger Aviculariidae have acquired a reputation for feeding on
+birds, and this has given rise both to their scientific and their
+popular name—bird-eating spiders. Several travellers have stated that
+they have observed them with birds in their grasp, and there is no
+doubt of their ability to kill any small bird or mammal, though it is
+probable that they seldom have the opportunity, for they spin no snare
+in which birds may be caught. Even without the aid of their poison,
+their jaws are so large and powerful that they may easily attain the
+vital organs of small animals. Probably their staple food consists of
+the larger insects.
+
+They live in holes in the ground or in trees, or sometimes in the
+fork of a tree-branch. In such hiding places they spend the hours of
+day-light, emerging at night in search of food. Their large size and
+uncanny appearance have attracted the attention of the collector, and
+a great many species are known, but the fact that they chiefly inhabit
+tropical countries has militated against any very extended study of
+their habits, and the few items of information we possess are best
+related with regard to the particular spider observed, and not taken as
+necessarily characteristic of the whole tribe. There is little doubt
+that they live for several years. McCook kept a specimen of _Dugesiella
+hentzi_ in captivity for five and a half years, and he considered that
+when it reached him it was at least a year and a half old, and probably
+more. The same species has recently been made the subject of some very
+interesting observations by Petrunkewitch, who obtained numerous living
+specimens from Texas and kept them in captivity; unless carefully
+packed, they bore the railway journey badly, and it was above all
+things necessary to supply them with water.
+
+The captives were fed on grass-hoppers, crickets, cockroaches and
+wolf-spiders, but they ate sparingly, one grass-hopper sufficing for
+three days in the summer, while in the winter hardly any food at all
+was taken.
+
+The sense of touch is extremely well developed in these spiders, but
+in sight, hearing and smell they are strangely deficient. No response
+whatever, was obtained to either high or low notes. A cricket sang for
+hours quite close to a spider which had been kept hungry for several
+days, without attracting any attention. It is very remarkable, by
+the way, that insects show no instinctive dread of these formidable
+creatures, not attempting to keep at a distance, and indeed frequently
+running over them in trying to find a way out of the cage. Nor do the
+spiders seem to be at all guided by smell; they evince no knowledge of
+the presence of insects which emit a strong odour, nor do they react
+to such tests as those to which the garden-spider was subjected unless
+strong irritants such as chlorine are employed, in the perception of
+which it is perhaps unnecessary that smell in the strict sense should
+take any part.
+
+They have eight eyes—two of them round and rather business-like in
+appearance, and the others oval or pear-shaped—and they are very
+sensitive to light, retreating at once from the direct rays of the
+sun or from a light flashed on them, but they do not appear to _see_
+anything at all, recognising neither friends nor enemies by sight,
+however close at hand. It was far otherwise with a wolf-spider in the
+same cage. Running towards the Dugesiella it was clearly aware of it at
+a distance of several inches, and could not be persuaded to approach
+nearer. But the supremacy of the sense of touch is most striking when
+the spiders are courting. When the male is seeking the female he seems
+quite unaware of her proximity unless he accidentally brushes up
+against her. If he loses contact for a moment he is quite at sea and
+wanders blindly about, turning, perhaps, to the left when the least
+motion to the right would bring them together again. This frequently
+happens when he has accidentally touched the female with one of the
+hind legs. He immediately turns about, and if she is still there, all
+is well, but if she has chanced to move out of reach, he is quite at a
+loss. Neither sight nor sound nor smell guide him, but touch only. The
+delicacy of this sense, however, is quite remarkable. He seems to be
+aware at once of the nature of the object which touches him, assuming
+a threatening attitude if the touch is hostile, or pouncing instantly
+if hungry and the touch is that of a passing insect. If, however, the
+insect is lucky enough to escape, it is in no danger of pursuit.
+
+As in the case of many spiders—though by no means of all—his courting
+is not unattended with peril. The tragic fate which sometimes overtakes
+the male spider has so hit the popular imagination that there is a
+general impression that the female spider is a confirmed misanthrope
+and desires the life of any suitor bold enough to approach her. Not at
+all! We have simply to remember that spiders are carnivorous and prone
+to cannibalism. If the female happens to be hungry she makes no nice
+discrimination between an amorous male and a succulent grass-hopper;
+if replete, she may find time for the play of softer emotions. The
+male of _D. hentzi_ appears to be more or less prepared for a hostile
+reception on the part of the female, for the thighs of his front legs
+are furnished with spurs at their extremity and with these he holds
+back and renders powerless her threatening fangs.
+
+There is no doubt that the spider’s delicate sense of touch resides in
+the hairs with which both body and limbs are thickly clothed. They are
+of various kinds—fine hairs, bristles, and stout spines—and many
+of them are supplied with nerve-fibres at the base. The finer hairs
+are probably not sensory, and they are, in the case of some Avicularid
+spiders very easily shed, and have a strongly irritant action on the
+hand that touches them, not unlike the sting of a nettle.
+
+It is not at all unusual for one large Avicularid spider, _Psalmopoeus
+cambridgii_, to be brought over to England in cases of bananas from
+the W. Indies. Mr James Adams of Dunfermline has kept two specimens
+alive for a considerable time. The first specimen lived in captivity
+for two years and nine months, during which it moulted five times but
+grew very little in size. Arriving in September, it was at first fed
+on flies, and in a few weeks, when these began to fail, it accepted
+beetles, consuming about three a day. In November, even these insects
+were difficult to obtain, and recourse was had to cockroaches. At first
+about three cockroaches a week were eaten but the number decreased
+until, in the middle of March it ceased feeding altogether, and on
+April 13 it cast its skin. It moulted again in October, and twice a
+year for the rest of its life—in spring and autumn. During six months
+it took no food at all, and very little for four months previously. At
+the last moult but one it lost a limb, which however, reappeared when
+the spider again changed its skin, though it never attained the proper
+size.
+
+With spiders, as with insects, moulting is a very serious matter,
+involving much more than the mere casting off of an external coat. If
+all does not go well limbs may easily be lost in the operation, nor is
+it rare to meet with instances in which the animal has perished in its
+unsuccessful attempt to discard the old integument.
+
+Mr Adams’ second specimen was kept alive for three years and ten
+months. It moulted only once each year—in June or July—and it died in
+the act of casting its skin. In the case of these spiders, also, it was
+noted that insects supplied to them as food displayed no fear whatever.
+There were always a few cockroaches in the same box, and they were
+often observed actually with the spider in its nest, but no notice was
+taken of them unless their host chanced to be hungry. A photograph of
+this spider is given in the Frontispiece.
+
+It is an interesting fact that many of the Aviculariidae of Southern
+Asia and Australia possess a sound-producing apparatus which is
+entirely lacking in African and American forms, but this is a subject
+which deserves a chapter to itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+STRIDULATION
+
+
+Many of the Arthropoda—the large group which includes insects and
+crustaceans as well as Arachnida—are able to produce sounds, a fact
+familiar enough in such insects as crickets and grass-hoppers. As,
+however, the breathing apparatus of these animals is entirely different
+from that of mammals and has no connection whatever with the mouth
+and alimentary canal, the mode of sound production is not at all the
+same. Instead of setting vocal chords in vibration by the expulsion of
+air through the larynx, insects “sing” or “chirp” by rapidly rubbing
+together certain specially roughened surfaces, which constitute what is
+called a “stridulating organ.” In crickets, for instance, each tegmen
+or wing-cover is provided with a kind of file, and when the wing-covers
+are rapidly vibrated, the edge of each rubs against the opposite file,
+and a loud shrill sound is produced.
+
+The stridulating apparatus is by no means always in the same place; the
+thorax may rub against the abdomen, the leg against the wing-cover,
+or one of the mouth appendages against another. Nor are the sounds
+produced always audible to human ears; at all events there are many
+creatures with what appear to be very well developed stridulating
+organs whose note has never yet been heard by any naturalist, but there
+are doubtless numberless sounds beyond the range of our hearing, which
+is limited, like the keyboard of a piano.
+
+Now such a stridulating apparatus has been detected in many spiders,
+and always in one of three situations—either between the two parts
+of the body (cephalothorax and abdomen) or between the palps and the
+mandibles, or between the palps and the front legs. In some of the
+Theridiidae the hind end of the cephalothorax is roughened and fits
+into a sort of socket in the abdomen which is provided with parallel
+ridges, so that when the abdomen is vibrated the two surfaces are
+rubbed together, but no one has yet heard a sound produced by these
+spiders. The stridulating Aviculariidae, however, are easily heard, the
+sound in some cases being described as a kind of whistle,—in others it
+has been said to have the effect of shot dropping upon a plate.
+
+There are two quite distinct purposes for which sounds may be produced;
+they may either serve as a call from one sex to the other, or as a
+warning to intruders. Obviously the first purpose requires a sense
+of hearing in the sex appealed to, and it is interesting to note
+that in the Theridiidae, which are among the spiders which show some
+appreciation of sound, the organ is well developed in the male only,
+being rudimentary or altogether absent in the female, while in the
+Aviculariidae, which appear to be quite deaf, both sexes possess it
+equally. In them its function is probably to warn off its enemies—a
+purpose for which it is not at all necessary that the spider itself
+should hear it.
+
+Sometimes sounds have been quite wrongly attributed to spiders; there
+is, for example, an Australian species widely known among natives
+as the “barking” or “booming” spider, for no better reason than
+that the spider has been found in the day-time at a spot where the
+booming was heard at night. This case was investigated by Professor
+Baldwin Spencer, who found that quails were really responsible for
+the sounds with which the spider was credited. The creature could,
+however, achieve a kind of whistle by rubbing its palps against its
+mandibles. Its stridulating apparatus was of the type common among
+the Aviculariidae. Its principle is that of the musical box, where
+nail-like projections on a barrel strike against the teeth of a metal
+comb, except that the barrel is stationary and the comb is moved up and
+down against it. The barrel is here represented by the first joint of
+the mandible which is beset on its outer side with spines. The inner
+edge of the first joint of the palp is furnished with “keys” which
+are rubbed against the mandible spines when the palps are vibrated.
+These keys are very curious structures. They are of various lengths,
+and their shape will perhaps be understood when it is said that a
+tolerable model of one would be obtained by taking a flat iron bar,
+sharpening it at the end, and then so twisting it in the middle that
+the flat surface of one half is at right-angles to the flat surface of
+the other half. Its appearance therefore varies according to the point
+of view, the narrow edge of one half and the broad edge of the other
+being visible at the same time. A moment’s consideration will show that
+this torsion is calculated to give great rigidity to the keys, for when
+the outer half is struck on the flat surface the inner half opposes
+its greatest diameter to the shock. A similar structure is found in
+all the Theraphosid spiders which are able to produce a sound, though
+sometimes the “keys” are on the mandibles and the spines on the palp.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 11. Three “keys” of a stridulating organ, after
+Spencer.]
+
+In Staten Island there is a wolf-spider—_Lycosa kochi_—which is known
+as the “purring” or “drumming” spider because of a curious habit which
+the male has, at mating time, of rapidly drumming on the dead leaves in
+a wood with its palps. It runs hither and thither over the ground as
+if in search of something, pausing at short intervals to “purr,” and
+the sound had frequently been heard and correctly attributed to the
+spider before the way in which it is produced was discovered. In this
+case it is probable that the production of sound is not the object of
+the spider at all, for we have no evidence that wolf-spiders hear. On
+the other hand rapid tapping with the palps is a very characteristic
+action with male spiders at mating time, and it is easy to believe that
+contiguous dry leaves would conduct vibrations to a female at some
+distance away and inform her of the presence of the male. Just so, as
+we have seen, our English Theraphosid announces his arrival by tapping
+on the exposed part of the nest of the female.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SPINNING APPARATUS, AND THE FEET
+
+
+Seeing that the possession of spinnerets is a characteristic of all
+spiders, and that a great deal of the interest attaching to their
+life-history arises from their spinning operations, any account of
+the group, however brief, would be incomplete without some attempt to
+describe these remarkable organs.
+
+Among the spiders to which the attention of the reader has been
+directed, some have been highly accomplished spinners, constructing
+complicated snares, retreats and egg-cocoons, while in the case of
+others the spinning work is very meagre and employed chiefly for the
+protection of the eggs. As might be expected, the organs attain a very
+much higher development in some spiders than in others, and the most
+complex of all are those of the Epeiridae, the constructors of the
+circular snare.
+
+Now in the first place it is rather striking that the spiders with the
+most conspicuous spinnerets are by no means the most able spinners. The
+“bird-eating” spiders are a case in point, for they spin very little,
+yet two of their spinnerets are much more obvious than anything Epeira
+has to show, for they protrude behind the body and strike the eye at
+the first glance. Indeed excessive length has nothing to do with
+complexity but is found wherever a wide sweep is necessary in laying
+down the threads—as we saw in the case of Agelena, when constructing
+its sheet-web.
+
+Roughly speaking, the spinnerets are very mobile finger-like
+projections, generally situated under the hind end of the abdomen and,
+bearing more or less numerous tubes from which the silken threads
+proceed. The usual number of spinnerets is six, but there is a pretty
+wide range, one group of spiders having only two, while a few possess
+eight.
+
+The spinnerets, then, are only the bearers of the actual tubes which
+emit the silk. The distribution of the tubes themselves is different
+in the different kinds of spiders, but it is usually possible to
+distinguish two kinds. There are generally present a large number of
+very fine cylindrical tubes or “spools” and a few conical tubes of much
+larger base, which are called spigots. Each of these orifices, whether
+on spool or spigot, is connected by a fine tube with a separate silk
+gland, or organ for manufacturing silk, situated within the spider’s
+abdomen. Epeira has about 600 of such glands, each with its own
+terminal spool or spigot, and the large number of these tubes has given
+rise to a misconception that is very widely spread—namely that the
+spider’s line, fine as it is, is “woven” of hundreds of threads of very
+much finer silk. This is not so, as we shall presently see.
+
+Though Epeira has some 600 silk-glands, it has only five different
+_kinds_ of gland, manufacturing silk of different properties. No other
+family of spiders has so many, though two other kinds of gland have
+been found in less elaborate spinners. Within the spider the silk is
+fluid but it solidifies on meeting the air, each thread hardening as it
+emerges though still continuous with the fluid contents of the gland,
+so that the drawing out of a silken thread is just like the operation
+so familiar with the glue-pot, or with spun glass, except that the
+hardening is not due to cooling but to exposure to the air. This
+general description will, it is hoped, make an account of the organs in
+Epeira more comprehensible.
+
+The spinnerets of Epeira are so small and inconspicuous that their
+disposition is not very easy to make out. When not in use they form
+a tiny cone under the tip of the abdomen, and only four are visible,
+their free ends being so brought together as entirely to conceal a
+small central pair. There are really, then, three pairs of spinnerets
+which we may call at once the anterior, median and posterior pairs,
+though when at rest only the anteriors and posteriors can be seen.
+If the spider is observed with a pocket-lens as it crawls about in a
+glass tube it will be noticed that the spinnerets are capable of great
+mobility. Their ends can be separated or brought together, or they may
+be made to rub against each other or against the sides of the tube.
+The anteriors and posteriors, moreover, are two-jointed though the
+medians consist only of a single joint.
+
+So much can be seen without any great magnification, but the microscope
+will be necessary if a complete understanding of their mechanism is to
+be arrived at. What it reveals will now be briefly described, and will,
+it is hoped, be made tolerably clear by the accompanying figures which
+are simplified by the omission of a large number of bristles which tend
+to hide the essential structure, and by a great reduction in the number
+of “spools,” though the spigots are all indicated.
+
+The anterior spinneret (that nearest the head end of the animal) is a
+sort of cone, divided into a large basal joint and a small terminal
+joint. The latter bears on its inner side a single spigot (fig. 12 _a_)
+and is crowned with a battery of spools, about a hundred in number.
+
+The median spinneret has three spigots, two at the tip and one on the
+inner side (fig. 12 _b_), and about a hundred spools, mostly on its
+inner surface.
+
+The posterior spinneret is divided very obliquely into two joints, so
+that the terminal joint extends much lower down on the inner than on
+the outer side. It has five spigots in groups of three and two, and
+again there are about a hundred spools.
+
+Now the point that I wish to make clear is that there is no
+interweaving of the output of these various spools and spigots. At the
+moment of emission the threads are adhesive, and can be made to stick
+to the glass or to one another, but they are not in any sense either
+fused or interwoven. For ordinary operations the brunt of the work is
+borne by the spigots marked _a_ in the figure, sometimes reinforced
+by silk from the spigots on the median spinnerets marked _b_, the
+functions of all the other spools and spigots being special and
+occasional. For instance, when Epeira is laying down a foundation line,
+this is what happens. The spider sits down, so to speak, on a twig,
+separating its spinnerets and rubbing them on the surface. As it raises
+its abdomen a multitude of little threads are seen merging into what
+appears to be a single line.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 12. View, from the inner side, of one of each of
+the three spinnerets of _Epeira_. _A_, anterior; _B_, median; _C_,
+posterior spinneret.]
+
+In reality the line is double, emerging from the spigots (_a_) on
+the anterior spinnerets, and it can easily be separated into two—and
+two only—any where along its length. The multitudinous spools have
+emitted short lengths of silk to anchor the foundation line at its
+commencement, but they are then closed and have no share in the
+ever-lengthening line as the spider lets itself drop or crawls away
+to attach it to a new spot. One of their uses, then, is to anchor
+the main lines from the spigots to external objects, but they have
+another function not less important. Everybody has seen a garden-spider
+trussing up a captured fly. It is held in the jaws and front legs and
+slowly revolved while with its hind legs the spider draws out bands of
+silk from the spinnerets and swathes it like a mummy. No silken rope,
+this, of fused or interwoven threads, but a broad band, every strand
+of which is separate and distinct and proceeds from a different spool.
+Two or three hundred fine threads wound simultaneously round the insect
+form a much more effectual winding sheet than would a single cord
+composed of them all.
+
+So far we have accounted for the spools, and for one pair of
+spigots—those on the anterior spinnerets. The lower spigot (_b_) on
+the middle spinneret often assists in laying down a foundation line
+when extra strength is required. In that case the line is fourfold, and
+can easily be split into four along its whole length, the threads from
+the middle spinnerets being rather finer than those from the anterior,
+but composed of the same kind of silk.
+
+There remain seven pairs of spigots whose function has still to be
+explained, two on the middle and five on the posterior spinnerets. The
+three which are clustered together on the posterior spinneret do not
+form _silk_ at all, that is, the material they emit does not harden on
+exposure to the air but remains fluid and adhesive. When the spider is
+spinning the “viscid spiral” of its web it is from these spigots that
+the sticky matter oozes, enveloping the true silken lines and presently
+resolving itself into little globules in the manner already described.
+
+The remaining spigots—two on the middle and two on the posterior
+spinnerets are employed only in spinning the egg-cocoon, and the silk
+they produce is unlike that used in making the snare, being much
+stronger and less elastic, and—in the case of the garden-spider—of
+a yellow colour. In the occasional attempts which have been made to
+substitute spiders for silkworms as commercial silk producers, it is
+only this cocoon silk that has given any considerable results, the
+produce of the other glands being far too frail for profitable use.
+Such attempts, however, have always failed, principally for a reason
+quite unconnected with the particular nature of the silk, namely,
+the difficulty of keeping the spiders in captivity. It is a simple
+matter to supply dozens of silkworms in the same box with mulberry
+leaves, but spiders require separate compartments or they will fight
+and devour each other, and the provision of suitable food for them is
+such a troublesome matter that it has proved quite impracticable on a
+commercial scale.
+
+We have incidentally seen that there are quite a number of different
+operations in which the spinning apparatus takes part. There is the
+line which most spiders lay down as they wander, and which secures
+them from the danger of a fall if they lose their footing; there is
+the snare for catching prey, the nest or retreat, and the egg-cocoon,
+and in addition, silk from the spinnerets may be used to enwrap and
+paralyse captured insects, or to assist the young spider to migrate.
+Since the Epeiridae perform all these operations, and are, moreover,
+the most finished of snare-makers, it does not surprise us to find in
+them the highest development of the silk glands and the most complete
+battery of spools and spigots on the spinnerets. Many spiders, as
+we know, make no snare at all, and in the case of some, very little
+spinning is attempted beyond the manufacture of a rather rudimentary
+covering for the eggs. Naturally a less complex spinning apparatus is
+required, and we accordingly find that jumping spiders, for instance,
+have only about fifty silk-glands comprising three different kinds of
+gland, while the glands found in such of the large Aviculariidae as
+have been examined have been all alike.
+
+There is in some spiders a spinning organ, not to be found in
+Epeira, which deserves a passing notice. It does not take the place
+of spinnerets, of which the usual three pairs are present, but it
+is situated in front of them, and only occurs in the female of the
+species. Its peculiarity is that the silk does not emerge from
+projecting spools; but through fine holes in a sieve-like plate, called
+a _cribellum_, which is flush with the surface of the abdomen. It has
+no mobility, therefore, and the threads from it have to be combed out
+and distributed by the spider’s hind leg. For the better accomplishment
+of this purpose there is a special comb of stiff hairs or bristles,
+called a _calamistrum_, on each of the fourth pair of legs.
+
+The web of these spiders is not unlike that of Agelena, but of a rather
+finer texture, and it can be seen, on magnification, to consist of
+an irregular ground-work over which have been spread wavy bands of
+excessively fine silk, combed out from the orifices of the cribellum
+glands. Some of these cribellate-spiders, of the genus _Amaurobius_,
+are not uncommon in our cellars and out-houses; their bodies are of
+stouter build and their legs much shorter than those of the common
+house-spider.
+
+We have no space for anything approaching a full description of the
+anatomy of spiders, but there is one other point of structure of which
+the reader has been promised some account. Attention was directed to
+the fact that while some spiders are helpless on smooth perpendicular
+surfaces unless they have lines to cling to, others can run with ease
+upon the walls or even the ceiling, of a room.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 13. Foot of Jumping Spider (on left), foot of
+Garden Spider (on right).]
+
+The last joint or _tarsus_ of the spider’s leg is very different in
+the two cases. It always terminates in claws—either two or three—so
+that any species can make some show of climbing where the surface is
+rough and there is anything to cling to, but to obtain a hold on a
+polished surface it needs a special contrivance. This takes the form
+of a pad of curiously modified hairs, called a _scopula_. The hairs
+are club-shaped, narrow at their stalk and swelling towards the tip,
+and their clinging power seems to be due to a viscid secretion. The
+foot of any jumping spider will show this structure well. Epeira has no
+scopula, and its climbing is always laborious unless it has a thread
+to cling to, but it is supreme as a rope walker, treading daintily on
+the most delicate threads, mounting a line “hand over hand” with great
+agility, and manipulating the silk in its various spinning operations
+with unerring skill and facility.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ENEMIES OF SPIDERS
+
+
+When one comes to consider the multitudinous risks to which a spider is
+exposed during the whole course of its life it seems at first a little
+surprising that the whole tribe has not long ago been exterminated.
+Spiders continue to flourish, however, and it is very clear that
+however careless Nature may be of the individual she is extremely
+solicitous about the race.
+
+The infant mortality among these creatures must be appalling. There is
+first their cannibalistic propensity to be reckoned with. Newly hatched
+spiders while still within the cocoon seldom attack each other, but as
+soon as ever each sets up for itself, no quarter is given. It often
+happens that members of a brood of sedentary spiders spin their first
+snares in close contiguity, and if food is scarce they eat one another
+without compunction. It is said that a few individuals of a brood may
+be reared to maturity on no other food than their sisters and brothers!
+The case of the survivor of the “Nancy Bell” in the Bab Ballads would
+be exceedingly commonplace in the aranead world. We have seen, too,
+how, on occasion, _Atypus_ will devour her young if they do not leave
+the nest with due expedition. Then if the weather conditions chance to
+be unfavourable just at the period of departure from the cocoon broods
+are liable to perish wholesale, washed away and destroyed by deluges of
+rain; myriads, too, must be carried out to sea in the course of their
+ballooning operations, and never come safely to land.
+
+But the mortality is probably even greater at a still earlier stage,
+for hosts of spiders’ eggs never hatch at all, and this for two
+reasons. In the first place, the silk of spiders is a favourite
+material with many birds for the lining of their nests, and many of
+them use the cocoons for this purpose. Secondly, there are numerous
+Ichneumon flies which attack and parasitise spiders’ cocoons, piercing
+them with their ovipositors and laying their eggs inside. The eggs of
+the Ichneumon fly hatch first and feed upon the eggs of the spider.
+Two such flies are known to attack the cocoons of the garden-spider,
+and not a single spider will emerge from a cocoon thus parasitised.
+The spiders whose cocoons are most subject to these attacks belong,
+as might perhaps be expected, to the sedentary groups, and the most
+elaborate but unavailing precautions are often taken to render them
+Ichneumon-proof. The cocoons of the peripatetic wolf-spiders have never
+been observed to be parasitised.
+
+Even if a spider has survived these early perils there are still many
+dangers ahead. During its period of growth it has to moult some eight
+or nine times, and the operation is at least as dangerous as, say, an
+attack of measles to the human infant. For some time beforehand feeding
+ceases, and the animal becomes inert and apparently dead, but presently
+the integument splits, and out struggles the spider, pale and soft, and
+leaving behind it not only the outer skin but the lining of most of
+its alimentary canal and of its breathing tubes. Sometimes, as we have
+said, it fails to extricate itself and dies; quite often it emerges
+with the loss of a limb, which will reappear—reduced in size—at
+the next moult. It is necessary to go into retreat for a time after
+moulting, till strength has returned and the integument has hardened.
+
+But the dangers of moulting, though not negligible, are insignificant
+beside others to which the spider is exposed during its later stages,
+nor is a prolonged dearth of food necessarily fatal, for, as we have
+seen, a spider can fast for an astonishing time and yet retain its
+health if it has a fair supply of water. But there are terrible
+enemies at hand from which it has little or no protection. Birds,
+of course, come first, for to most insectivorous birds spiders are
+acceptable morsels. I have seen a hedge sparrow going conscientiously
+over a trellis work and picking out all the spiders from the nooks and
+corners. Then insectivorous mammals make no distinction between the
+Insecta and the Arachnida, and often eat spiders with avidity, as also
+will toads and lizards.
+
+Moreover, Ichneumon flies do not confine their attention to cocoons,
+but often attack well-grown spiders. They invariably lay their eggs on
+one spot—at the very front of the abdomen, near the cephalothorax,
+where the spider is powerless to dislodge them. The egg hatches out
+to a grub which is a veritable “old man of the sea” on the spider’s
+back, and there it remains until it causes the death of its victim by
+feeding on the contents of the abdomen. Four such Ichneumon flies have
+been found to attack the garden-spider, and no kind of spider seems
+exempt. How they contrive to deposit their eggs in the proper place
+without great danger of themselves falling a prey to their victims
+is a mystery. To venture into a garden-spider’s web for the purpose
+would seem a fool-hardy proceeding. The actual deposition of the egg
+has seldom been witnessed, but in one of the few cases that have come
+under observation the spider made little resistance and appeared quite
+demoralised. It was hanging from a thread, down which the Ichneumon fly
+was seen to crawl. When it reached the spider the latter dropped an
+inch lower on two or three occasions but then remained passive, and the
+parasite on nearing it, turned round, backed down the line, and with
+great care and deliberation attached an egg at the usual spot.
+
+But no enemies of spiders are more terrible than some of the solitary
+wasps, and gruesome indeed is the fate of any creature that falls
+into their clutches. The social wasps often capture spiders to feed
+their young but in their case the proceeding is summary and without
+any finesse. They merely catch a spider, sting it to death, cut it
+to pieces with their jaws, and feed it into the mouths of their
+expectant grubs. The treatment is brutal enough, but at all events it
+is expeditious. Now the solitary “digger” wasps never see their young.
+They make cells, either by burrowing in the ground or by agglomerating
+particles of mud or gravel, and in each cell is placed an egg together
+with sufficient food to last the grub which hatches out for the whole
+of its larval existence. The mother will not be at hand—as is the
+social worker-wasp—to supply new food as required, and it is therefore
+necessary so to arrange matters that the food provided may retain its
+fresh condition for at least a fortnight. On the other hand the victims
+must be deprived of all power of motion, otherwise the egg will stand
+a great chance of being displaced and crushed, and even if it hatches
+it will be unable to commence its meal upon the struggling spider.
+
+Now in the whole range of animal instinct there is nothing more
+remarkable than the manner in which the solitary wasps have learnt to
+solve this problem. The solution lies in so stinging the victim that
+it is paralysed but not killed, and though quite unable to move, it
+neither shrivels nor decays, but remains perfectly sound and edible for
+two or three weeks. To accomplish this result the wasp acts as though
+it possessed a knowledge of the minute anatomy of its victim, and
+knew to a hair’s breadth the position of the principal nerve ganglia
+which control its actions. Into these it unerringly thrusts its sting.
+But even accuracy of aim is not everything; there must be the finest
+discrimination in the severity of the wound. A slight excess, and the
+animal is killed; too timid a thrust will not destroy movement. When
+the delicate operation has been successfully performed, the paralysed
+spider is dragged into the cell, placed on its back, and an egg
+carefully deposited at the base of its abdomen, after which the cell
+is sealed up. Some wasps, instead of providing a single large spider,
+store their cells with a number of smaller victims, all rendered limp
+and motionless.
+
+In attacking a spider the first action of one of these wasps is to
+remove it from its natural environment. A garden-spider in its web, or
+a burrowing spider in its tunnel are more or less formidable, but if
+the one can be thrown down, or the other dragged forth into the open,
+they are well-nigh defenceless. Therefore in attacking an Epeirid the
+wasp first darts at it, seizes a leg, and attempts to jerk it out of
+the web. If unsuccessful, the spider will now be on its guard, and the
+wasp leaves it and tries the same manœuvre on another individual. Taken
+by surprise, it is instantly thrown to the ground, and can then offer
+no effectual resistance. Even the large “bird-eaters” fall victims to
+these terrible foes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SOME CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS
+
+
+In the foregoing pages we have been able to deal with very few out of
+the vast number of known spiders; yet the examples we have chosen for
+study are fairly typical of some of the more important groups, and
+calculated to give a tolerably just idea of the general economy of the
+tribe. In any case even such a fragmentary study as the present gives
+us food for thought. There is a question which the writer has so often
+been asked that he is inclined to deal with it in anticipation, though
+perhaps he is wronging his readers in supposing that they desire to
+propound any such conundrum. This question is: What is the _use_ of
+spiders?
+
+Now underlying this question there is surely a very unwarranted
+assumption that all the myriad creatures which exist have, as a reason
+for their existence, some reference to the activities and desires of
+mankind. As far as it has any meaning at all it amounts to this: What
+benefit does man derive from spiders? But it seems to take for granted
+that some benefits must accrue to man from these creatures, or they
+would not have the audacity to persist in living. Well, if the question
+in this amended form is in urgent need of an answer, the reply must
+be: very little if any. Certainly spiders prey as a rule on insects
+and no doubt kill many which might injure us, and in the constant
+battles between man and insect pests, instances have been recorded
+where particular species of spider have fought on the side of man with
+appreciable effect. But then they are as likely to devour our insect
+friends as our insect enemies, impartially slaying the just together
+with the unjust, so that little stress can be laid on their utility on
+this score. Indeed there is quite as good a case to be made out of man
+benefiting spiders as of spiders benefiting man, for his architectural
+proclivities have provided some species with secure homes from which
+most of their enemies—except man himself—are excluded, and where they
+are sheltered from the storms which are so fatal to their relatives
+outside, protected from extremes of temperature, and rendered so
+independent of times and seasons that the number of broods they produce
+in the year has increased. Whether a creature is useful or injurious
+is entirely a matter of the point of view. There are several animals
+with regard to which the opinions of the farmer and the gamekeeper are
+diametrically opposed!
+
+But if anything emerges from the study in which we have been engaged,
+it is surely this fact: that wherever there is a niche in nature
+capable of sustaining life, to that niche some animal will sooner or
+later adapt itself without any reference to man’s desires or interests.
+We have seen spiders, all built on the same ground-plan, so to speak,
+and with the same essential organs, so modified in the details of
+structure and inherited instincts as to be able to thrive under the
+most diverse conditions. Think, for instance, of the water-spider
+and the desert Tarantula, or consider the difference in mode of life
+between the sedentary garden-spider and the hunting Attid.
+
+Incessant competition in the struggle for life no doubt urged on
+primeval spiders to strike out new modes of existence. Under slightly
+novel conditions the best adapted or most adaptable survived and
+were pioneers in the occupation of a new territory till the widely
+different capacities and habits which we now wonder at were slowly
+evolved.
+
+Another point to ponder on is the wonderful complexity of the instincts
+which govern the actions of spiders; the extraordinary operations
+they can perform, entirely untaught, and of the object of which it is
+impossible to believe they are aware. We have seen that, in the most
+highly organised species, the sense organs—except perhaps that of
+touch—are but moderately developed, and the power of memory, the basis
+of intelligent action, but feeble; yet their inherited impulses suffice
+for all ordinary emergencies, and recur with unfailing precision at
+the proper periods of their lives. They are machine-like, perhaps, but
+what extraordinarily competent machines! The light of what we call
+intelligence burns low, but a glimmer of it can be detected here and
+there.
+
+If one comes to think of it, the egg of a creature of complex instincts
+is a particularly wonderful atom; it contains not only the germs of all
+the complicated bodily structure, but there are bound up in it also
+the impulses that are to come into play at certain definite periods
+only of the spider’s life-history. And these impulses are not mere
+vague reminders that now is the time to spin a snare, or to weave an
+egg-cocoon; they prescribe precisely how it is to be done, involving
+perhaps a dozen different spinning operations in one unvarying order.
+Viewed in this light, the germ of an insect or a spider would seem
+in a sense to be more complex than that of an animal whose vague
+instinctive impulses are under the direction of intelligence, and can
+be carried out in a variety of ways according to circumstances.
+
+One of the most surprising things about the egg of a spider is the
+amount of _energy_ stored up in it. A bird’s egg, huge in comparison,
+contains material sufficient to build up the body of a fledgeling just
+sufficiently active to be able to accept from the mother that first
+nutriment without which it will speedily die.
+
+But turn back to the account of the tarantula-spider. Its egg is
+small—perhaps the twelfth of an inch in diameter; yet it not only
+produces a spiderling complete in form, and provided with all the
+complex instincts of its tribe, but there is so much energy to spare
+that, for months, without any new food-supply, the young spider
+can lead an active life, frequently descending from and remounting
+its mother’s back, and can even put forth silk on its own account!
+The objects which a conjuror produces from a hat seem trifles in
+comparison with the outcome of a spider’s egg—the actual material
+seems astonishing from so small a source, but whence comes all this
+surprising surplus of energy? Fabre suggests that it is supplied by
+the direct rays of the sun, to which the Tarantula exposes in turn all
+parts of the egg-cocoon.
+
+All through their lives spiders seem to be gifted in a high degree with
+the power of extracting the utmost value, in substance and in energy,
+from their food. Consider the great Theraphosid spiders—the so called
+bird-eaters. They have a massive body, and great muscular power to
+sustain; yet they are never heavy feeders and can go for many months
+without any food at all. And it is not as though they were dormant
+during this period of abstention; their vital processes seem to be
+going on as usual the whole time, and they are ready at any moment
+to resent attack, or to employ their spinning organs during their
+long fast. True hibernation, as we have seen, does not occur in this
+group; if it did, there would be nothing remarkable in the occasional
+long abstention from food. The vitality of a hibernating animal is
+practically at a standstill; all its vital operations—breathing,
+blood-circulation, muscular action—are reduced to the lowest possible
+limit, and it very likely expends no more energy during its winter
+sleep than it would during a day or two of active summer life.
+
+But of such reflexions there is no end, and many such will doubtless
+arise spontaneously in the mind of the thoughtful reader, and it is for
+that very reason that the study of the life-history of any animal is of
+such absorbing interest. It is not contended that spiders are any more
+wonderful than any other group that might have been selected. There
+is, of course, a special interest attaching to the study of animals
+very much nearer to man in bodily structure and mental equipment, but
+the endeavour to understand the actions and appreciate the outlook on
+nature of creatures far remote from man, however unsuccessful, has its
+own fascination.
+
+And this is what the mere collector entirely misses. Collecting is
+of course necessary, for a complete examination is never possible in
+the living specimen, and moreover without examples kept as types for
+reference we should lose our way in the multitude of living forms. But
+as an end in itself it is of vastly inferior value. The writer will be
+well content if he has succeeded in arousing the curiosity of some with
+regard to the humble life that surrounds us, and in stimulating a few
+who possess the requisite keenness and patience to add to our store of
+knowledge by new observations of their own.
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE
+
+
+Most of the large publications on the Arachnid fauna of different
+countries give some preliminary account of the habits of spiders, but
+the only considerable work entirely devoted to that subject is McCook’s
+_American Spiders and their Spinning-work_ (Philadelphia, 1893). A
+small but interesting book on _The Structure and Habits of Spiders_
+was published ten years previously by Emerton (Boston, 1883). But the
+reader who wishes to pursue further the study of some point to which
+his attention has been called in the foregoing pages may desire to be
+referred, for fuller details, to the original papers.
+
+Many writers have described the spinning of the circular snare,
+and indeed it is quite easy for any one to watch the operation for
+himself; but McCook goes into the matter in great detail and figures
+many interesting variants of its normal form. J. H. Fabre’s delightful
+_Souvenirs entomologiques_ (Delagrave, Paris) have been issued at
+intervals for many years past, and mostly deal with insects. In
+Series 9, however, he has an entertaining chapter on “Les Epeires.”
+That the “viscid globules” arranged themselves mechanically was first
+demonstrated by C. V. Boys (_Nature_, xl, 1889, p. 250). The same
+writer experimented on the sense of hearing in spiders (_Nature_,
+xxiii, 1880, p. 149). The interesting paper by G. and E. Peckham on the
+mental powers of spiders is to be found in the _Journal of Morphology_
+(Boston U.S.A. i, 1887, p. 403.)
+
+The aeronautic habit has engaged the attention of many arachnologists.
+Blackwall dealt with it in various papers in the _Transactions of the
+Linnaean Society_ between 1833 and 1841, but the most complete account
+is to be found in McCook’s original papers which are summarised in his
+book already cited.
+
+With regard to the spinning operations of _Agelena_ the reader may
+consult a paper by the present writer in the _Annals and Magazine of
+Natural History_, August, 1891.
+
+The habits of the Water Spider were first described by de Lignac in
+a _Mémoire_ published in 1749. Since that date many writers, notably
+Wagner and Plateau, have dealt with the subject. The paper by the
+last named in the _Annales des Sciences naturelles_, 1867, p. 345, is
+particularly worth reading.
+
+E. Peckham deals with “Protective Resemblances in Spiders” in the
+publication of the _Natural History Society of Wisconsin_ for 1889.
+
+The reader interested in the habits of the Wolf-spiders must certainly
+consult the chapters on “La Lycose de Narbonne” in Series 9 of Fabre’s
+_Souvenirs entomologiques_.
+
+The classical account by the Peckhams, of the love dances of jumping
+spiders appeared conjointly with the paper by E. Peckham on “Protective
+Resemblances” cited above.
+
+For the habits of _Atypus affinis_ (or _piceus_) the reader is referred
+to the very complete account given by Enock in the _Transactions of the
+Entomological Society_ (London, 1885, p. 394) of observations extending
+through several years.
+
+The larger Aviculariidae have been dealt with in various papers by
+Pocock, and the particulars given with regard to _Dugesiella_ were
+taken from a paper by Petrunkevitch in the _Zoologischen Jahrbüchern_,
+xxxi, 1911.
+
+In the _Archiv für Naturgeschichte_, i, 1889, Apstein published an
+admirable piece of research on the structure and function of the
+spinning glands of spiders. He investigated the glands present in the
+various families, and the particular arrangement of the spools and
+spigots on the spinnerets.
+
+A paper by the present writer in the _Quarterly Journal of
+Microscopical Science_ for April 1890 continued this investigation, and
+shewed the special operations in which the various glands participated
+in the case of the Garden Spider.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Aerial flights, 32
+
+_Agelena_, 38-46
+
+Agelenidae, 11, 38
+
+_Araneae theraphosae_, 87
+
+_Araneae verae_, 87, 89
+
+_Argyroneta_, 3, 49, 50, 51, 52
+
+Arthropoda, 6
+
+Attidae, 4, 33, 52, 76-87
+
+Atypidae, 93
+
+_Atypus affinis_, 89, 121
+
+
+Balloons, 34
+
+Banana spider, 103
+
+Barking spider, 107
+
+Bird-eating spiders, 25, 89, 99
+
+Body parasites, 123
+
+Burrows, 63
+
+
+Calamistrum, 118
+
+Cannibalism, 33, 120
+
+Carrying the young, 73
+
+Characteristics of spiders, 4
+
+Chelicerae, 10, 87
+
+Cocoon, 12, 44, 64
+
+Cocoon of _Agelena_, 44
+
+Crab-spiders, 52
+
+Cribellum, 118
+
+Crustacea, 6
+
+_Cyclosa conica_, 28
+
+
+Darwin’s Pike, 22
+
+_Desis_, 49
+
+Drassidae, 11
+
+Drumming spider, 109
+
+_Dugesiella hentzi_, 99
+
+
+Educability, 22, 27, 28
+
+Egg parasites, 121
+
+Enemies of spiders, 120
+
+Energy stored in the egg, 130
+
+_Epeira_, 3, 19, 112-116, 119
+
+_E. diademata_, 13
+
+Eyes of jumping spiders, 78
+
+
+Feet of spiders, 119
+
+Foundation lines, 13, 14, 16, 17
+
+
+Garden-spider, 2, 13, 15, 19, 20, 23, 27, 39, 78, 121, 123, 126, 128
+
+Gossamer, 36
+
+
+Habits of _Agelena_, 38
+  _Atypus_, 90
+  Jumping spiders, 79
+  Tarantula, 69
+  Theraphosid spiders, 99
+  Trap-door spiders, 95
+
+Harvest spiders, 8
+
+Hearing, 23, 101
+
+_Heteropoda venatorius_, 37
+
+Hibernation, 2, 131
+
+Hub, 13, 14
+
+Huntsman spider, 37
+
+_Hyptiotes paradoxus_, 31
+
+
+Infant mortality, 120, 121
+
+Instinct, 21, 22, 29, 46, 129
+
+
+Jumping spiders, 4, 76-87
+
+
+_Linyphia_, 3, 32
+
+Love dances, 82-87
+
+Lung-books, 10
+
+_Lycosa kochi_, 109
+
+_Lycosa picta_, 61
+
+Lycosidae, 5, 33, 52, 58-76
+
+
+Mammillae, 10
+
+Marine spiders, 49
+
+Mental powers, 20
+
+_Meta segmentata_, 23
+
+Mimicry, 55-58
+
+_Misumena_, 54
+
+Moulting, 104, 122
+
+
+Notched zone, 13, 14
+
+
+_Philodromus_, 54
+
+_Phrynarachne_, 57
+
+_Pirata_, 59, 66
+
+Poison of spiders, 75
+
+Poison gland, 88
+
+_Psalmopoeus cambridgii_, frontispiece, 103
+
+Purring spider, 109
+
+
+Rastellum, 98
+
+Recognition of cocoons, 66
+
+Red spider, 8
+
+Scopula, 119
+
+Sight, 23, 60, 81, 101
+
+Silk glands, 111, 112
+
+Smell, 25, 100
+
+Solitary wasps, 124, 125
+
+Spigots, 111, 113-116
+
+Spinnerets, 8, 110-118
+
+Spinning apparatus, 110
+
+Spinning glands, 111
+
+Spinning operations, 117
+
+Spools, 111, 113, 114, 115
+
+Starvation, 122
+
+Stridulation, 25, 105
+
+Stridulating Keys, 107, 108
+
+
+Tarantula, 68-74, 128
+
+Tarsus, 119
+
+Taste, 26
+
+_Theraphosa leblondi_, 94
+
+Theraphosidae, 25, 87-104
+
+Theridiidae, 33
+
+_Theridion_, 3, 23, 32
+
+Thomisidae, 33, 52
+
+Touch, 27, 101, 102
+
+Tracheae, 6
+
+Trap-door spiders, 89, 94, 98
+
+Trap-snares, 31
+
+
+Use of spiders, 127
+
+
+Viscid spiral, 15, 18, 19, 20, 116
+
+
+Water-spiders, 48-52
+
+Wolf-spiders, 58, 76
+
+
+Zebra spider, 77
+
+
+CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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+
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+PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
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+  4 The Idea of God in Early Religions. By Dr F. B. Jevons.
+
+  57 Comparative Religion. By Dr F. B. Jevons.
+
+  69 Plato: Moral and Political Ideals. By Mrs J. Adam.
+
+  26 The Moral Life and Moral Worth. By Prof. Sorley, Litt.D.
+
+  3 The English Puritans. By John Brown, D.D.
+
+  11 An Historical Account of the Rise and Development of
+       Presbyterianism in Scotland. By the Rt Hon. the Lord Balfour of
+       Burleigh, K.T., G.C.M.G.
+
+  41 Methodism. By Rev. H. B. Workman, D.Lit.
+
+
+EDUCATION
+
+  38 Life in the Medieval University. By R. S. Rait, M.A.
+
+
+LAW
+
+  13 The Administration of Justice in Criminal Matters (in England
+       and Wales). By G. Glover Alexander, M.A., LL.M.
+
+
+BIOLOGY
+
+  1 The Coming of Evolution. By Prof. J. W. Judd, C.B., F.R.S.
+
+  2 Heredity in the Light of Recent Research. By L. Doncaster,
+      Sc.D.
+
+  25 Primitive Animals. By Geoffrey Smith, M.A.
+
+  73 The Life-story of Insects. By Prof. G. H. Carpenter.
+
+  48 The Individual in the Animal Kingdom. By J. S. Huxley, B.A.
+
+  27 Life in the Sea. By James Johnstone, B.Sc.
+
+  75 Pearls. By Prof. W. J. Dakin.
+
+  28 The Migration of Birds. By T. A. Coward.
+
+  36 Spiders. By C. Warburton, M.A.
+
+  61 Bees and Wasps. By O. H. Latter, M.A.
+
+  46 House Flies. By C. G. Hewitt, D.Sc.
+
+  32 Earthworms and their Allies. By F. E. Beddard, F.R.S.
+
+  74 The Flea. By H. Russell.
+
+  64 The Wanderings of Animals. By H. F. Gadow, F.R.S.
+
+
+ANTHROPOLOGY
+
+  20 The Wanderings of Peoples. By Dr A. C. Haddon, F.R.S.
+
+  29 Prehistoric Man. By Dr W. L. H. Duckworth.
+
+
+GEOLOGY
+
+  35 Rocks and their Origins. By Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole.
+
+  44 The Work of Rain and Rivers. By T. G. Bonney, Sc.D.
+
+  7 The Natural History of Coal. By Dr E. A. Newell Arber.
+
+  30 The Natural History of Clay. By Alfred B. Searle.
+
+  34 The Origin of Earthquakes. By C. Davison, Sc.D., F.G.S.
+
+  62 Submerged Forests. By Clement Reid, F.R.S.
+
+  72 The Fertility of the Soil. By E. J. Russell, D.Sc.
+
+
+BOTANY
+
+  5 Plant-Animals: a Study in Symbiosis. By Prof. F. W. Keeble.
+
+  10 Plant-Life on Land. By Prof. F. O. Bower, Sc.D., F.R.S.
+
+  19 Links with the Past in the Plant-World. By Prof. A. C.
+       Seward, F.R.S.
+
+PHYSICS
+
+  52 The Earth. By Prof. J. H. Poynting, F.R.S.
+
+  53 The Atmosphere. By A. J. Berry, M.A.
+
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+
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+
+
+PSYCHOLOGY
+
+  14 An Introduction to Experimental Psychology. By Dr C. S. Myers.
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+
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