156 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ered with small stones, some of them astonishingly large in proportion 

 to the size of the spider, which she has carried up one by one from 

 the ground. There the deadly spider lurks invisible. If you touch 

 the nest, she rushes out, a beautiful creature, with the red patch 

 blazing on her back like fire. 



A charming little spider is a Nemoscolus (one of the Argiopidse), 

 which makes a curled nest just like a tiny bugle, within which she 

 lurks. If you walk over the flats, you will see these little bugles sus- 

 pended upright, mouth downwards, on the karoo bushes, about a foot 

 from the ground. The 'bugle' is kept in position by means of about 

 five powerful strands, tightly strained in different directions, and 

 from its mouth radiates a beautiful little geometric web, hung over the' 

 ground like a tiny parasol. If you take hold of the bugle, the spider 

 rushes to its mouth, gives a quick glance round, and then drops to' 

 the earth like a plumet, where she lies, feigning death, and is by no 

 means easy to discover. 



Another genus of the same family is Argiope, which spins a good- 

 sized geometric web with a light pyramidal tangle below it. A 

 favorite site is the open mouth of an ant-bear hole. She sits in the 

 middle of the web, back downwards. The abdomen is large, and 

 somewhat flat with deeply serrated edges, and both it and the cephalo- 

 thorax, which is slight and to some extent overhung by the abdomen,. 

 are whitish or whitish-yellow above and darkly speckled brown and 

 yellow below, while the legs are longish and definitely banded. If she' 

 hung back upwards, the white would betray her, but with the lower 

 side up it is wonderful how inconspicuous she is against the ruddy 

 soil of the karoo. If alarmed she shakes the web until it vibrates with 

 astonishing rapidity, so that she becomes merely a haze; and then she 

 drops to the earth, where she either lies still on her back or clings : 

 to a small twig low down, presenting the speckled side to the pursuer,, 

 remaining motionless and well hidden. 



Yet a third genus of this family may be mentioned. Cyrtophora 

 is often found in prickly pear (Opuntia) hedges. Here she builds 

 a large geometric web with a dense pyramidal tangle below it, both 

 composed of thread of immense strength. The color varies with' 

 these spiders and is of considerable beauty. The abdomen is notched' 

 above and projects over the cephalothorax to such an extent that the 

 spider has quite a hunch-backed appearance. Like Argiope, she hangs- 

 back downwards in the middle of the web, with the pyramidal tangle 

 below her. The threads of her web and tangle are so strong and the- 

 prickly pear hedges are at times so densely covered with them that 

 the long stick with which one plucks the sweet ripe fruit often becomes- 

 so coated with the powerful strands and so impeded thereby that it 

 cannot be used effectively till cleaned. 



