WITH THE WEB MAKERS 



165 



With the Web Makers 



The Study of Spiders. 



BY UK. R. \V. SHUFELDT, WASHINGTON, 

 D. C. 



There have lived naturalists who de- 

 voted their entire lives to the study of 

 spiders ; indeed, in the case of a few. 

 their researches were confined to 

 special groups of spiders. There are 

 naturalists living now who are patient- 

 ly pursuing similar studies ; yet, with 

 all the literature we have on this sub- 

 ject and the constant contributions 

 which are being" made to it, there still 

 remains to be studied an almost end- 

 less number of these forms, while many 

 spiders are not yet known to science, 

 and we may say that but a -very small 

 part of their structure is known at all. 



There is plenty of room here for the 

 young naturalist to interest himself 111 : 

 for, in many instances, the habits of 

 our commonest species of spiders have 

 never been carefully studied or de- 

 scribed. 



Unthinking people — or those who 

 have never given the matter a thought 

 — when asked what a spider is, are 

 pretty sure to say that it is some kind 

 of insect or other. This is a long way 

 from the truth, for spiders are not in- 

 sects at all, any more than crabs and 

 crayfish are insects. As a matter oi 

 fact, they belong to a very well defined 

 group designated as the Araneina, of 

 which no fewer than seven Suborders 

 are known. That is to say, we have the 

 tunnel-weavers, the orb-weavers, the 

 line-weavers, the tube-weavers, the 

 crab spiders, the running spiders and 

 the lumping spiders. 



Spiders possess no antenna? as we 

 find in insects, and the head and thorax 

 are fused together forming a cephalo- 

 thorax, — these two parts being sepa- 

 rate in the Insecta. The abdomen is 

 said to be "stalked" or joined to the 

 cepholothorax by a constricted isthmus. 

 At its distal end. we find the spinnerets 

 or spinning tubercles, in which is 

 stored the material for the making of 

 the web or other habitation. Xow, if 



any one will take the trouble to capture 

 any good-sized spider, and place it in 

 some suitable receptacle for examina- 

 tion with a magnifying-glass, it will 

 further be observed that near the 

 mouth there occur a pair of append- 

 ages wihch terminate, at their free 

 ends, in claws. These are called cheli- 



Fig. 1. The garden-spider and its orb-web. 



ccrcc, and in some species their apices 

 open externally, which openings lead 

 to the poison-glands. The next pair of 

 mouth-organs, called pedipalps, seem to 

 correspond to the antennae of insects. 

 Spiders have from two to four pairs 

 of lungs, and the openings leading into 

 these sacs are to be observed near the 

 abdominal stalk on the under side. 

 There is a whole lot to study on a 

 spider with a good glass, — so much, 



