110 SPIDERS [CH. 



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 ac- 

 complished 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 r 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 



