830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



guests in the web of larger ones. The general charge of cruelty 

 may have arisen from the conduct of some of the Epeira family, 

 one of the largest and gayest in dress, as well as the most common 

 and widely distributed of the spider tribes. 



A noteworthy member of this family found by the naturalist 

 in the Challenger Expedition (E. clavipes) makes a web so strong 

 that even birds are made prisoners by it, though whether the spi- 

 der devours them does not appear. On the same expedition an- 

 other was observed which possessed a more imposing residence, 

 having by way of an upper story a globular mass of irregular 

 threads over her horizontal " first floor." In this attic lived 

 her spouse, a minute creature after the spider fashion of mates. 

 Between his quarters and the parlor, where madam herself, 

 the builder and provider, had her place, hung suspended the 

 precious egg-bags, or nurseries, three or four in number, of dif- 

 ferent ages. 



The cunning not to say the intelligence of the race, is shown 

 by some in their unique method of concealing themselves from a 

 known or suspected enemy, while remaining in plain sight all the 

 time. It is by a violent shaking of the web, which, being extremely 

 elastic, vibrates so rapidly as to confuse the outlines of the sub- 

 stantial body standing in the center and causing all the commo- 

 tion. Could she have invented a more ingenious way if she had 

 been a learned scientist ? 



The mania for decoration has reached, or possibly it began 

 with, the spinning sisterhood. Dr. McCook describes some curi- 

 ous examples. There is the bank Argiope, a personage in silver 

 drab, who makes for her own special use a white silken carpet in 

 the middle of her large round web. From the top of the carpet 

 reaches a ribbon of the same, and from the bottom descends a zig- 

 zag cord like the famous " winding stair " of the old song. Rest- 

 ing, head down, in her place, she is able to defy ordinary enemies, 

 for she knows the trick of shaking her web until her body is abso- 

 lutely invisible. Unlike many of the family, she prepares her nurs- 

 ery out of the house, forming a tent by lashing leaves or grasses 

 together, and fastening securely within it a pear-shaped cocoon. 

 This cradle, which is to swing in its airy tent all winter, is glazed 

 outside, but within a mass of soft, silken blankets which wrap the 

 eggs from all harm. 



A near relation of this prudent mother, the banded Argiope, 

 in white furry coat, decorates her symmetrical web from top to 

 bottom with ladders of white silk. Decoration reaches its lowest 

 form in a web described by the same observer, where the cocoons, 

 the precious cradles of the household, are covered with cast-off 

 shells and gauzy wings left from past and gone feasts whether 

 as " souvenirs " of the occasions, or to disguise the true character 



