IRREGULAR SNARES 



351 



irregular structure of silk, and thus form connecting links, as 

 regards habit, between the group of which we have been speaking 

 and the Theridiidae or 

 Line -weavers, which may 

 now briefly be dealt with. 



The Irregular Snare. 

 The great majority of 

 British Spiders belong to 

 the family of the Theri- 

 diidae, or Line -weavers. 

 Some of these are among 

 the handsomest of our 

 'native species, and are in 

 other respects highly in- 

 teresting, but their snares 

 lack the definiteness of 

 structure exhibited by the 

 orb -web, and little need 

 be said about them. 



For the most part they 

 consist of fine irregular 

 lines running in all direc- 

 tions between the twigs of bushes or among the stems of grass 

 and herbage. One large and important genus, Linyplim, always 

 constructs a horizontal sheet of irregular threads with a maze 

 of silk above it. Such snares may be seen in myriads in the 

 wayside hedges during the summer, and they are especially 

 notable objects \vhen heavily laden with dew. Insects impeded 

 in their flight by the maze of threads drop into the underlying 

 sheet, and are soon completely entangled. The spider usually 

 runs beneath the sheet in an inverted position. 



The sheet or hammock of silk is absent in the case of most 

 of the other genera of this family, their snares being innocent of 

 any definite method in their structure. They are frequently 

 quite contiguous, and it is no uncommon thing to find a holly 

 bush completely covered with a continuous network of threads, 

 the work of a whole colony of the pretty little spider Theridion 

 sisyphium. 



As might be imagined from the simplicity or absence of 

 design in the structure of the net, there appears to be very little 



FIG. 192. Snare of Epeira basilica. 

 (After M'Cook.) 



