xni] SPINNING APPARATUS AND FEET 111 



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. 



