WITH THE WEB MAKERS 



167 



Spiders put their silk to various uses, 

 as the making of their webs (Fig. 1) ; 

 the lining of their tunnels or nests; to 

 envelop their eggs, and, in some in- 

 stances, to spin a device, by means of 

 which some species are able to fly. 



Spider poison is extremely active and 

 in a few instances has been fatal to 

 man ; and, were such a spider as a 

 tarantula as big in bulk as a rattle- 

 snake, its poison would be fully fifty 

 times more dangerous to life. 



Most species of spiders live a soli- 

 tary life; others sometimes live in 

 pairs, and when they do, they are con- 

 stantly fighting each other. When Mr. 

 Kipling attempted to show that "the 

 female of the species is more deadly 

 than the male," he probably had cob- 

 webs in his knowledge-box; for, while 

 it is surely true of spiders, it is by no 

 means true of the vast majority of ani- 

 mals now living in the world. 



Female spiders are nearly always 

 much bigger than the males of the 

 same species, and are far more fre- 

 quently seen by us. Male spiders are 

 constantly being persecuted or killed 

 by the female ones, — the latter amus- 

 ing herself by biting off his legs, or 

 slaying him outright for a meal. She 

 is of an initable, fickle and quarrel- 

 some disposition ; and, after only too 

 brief a courtship — by her brought to a 

 close — she will bite her lover to death 

 and gobble him up. 



Under normal conditions some spi- 

 ders have kept alive for a year ; others 

 may live as long as three or four years, 

 but that is about the limit of the longe- 

 vity of any of them. If we constantly 

 study them in nature, we may frequent- 

 ly meet with males in which several of 

 of the legs are missing. These have 

 been, as a rule, snipped off by their 

 voracious mates, and they never grow 

 rut again. This kind of spider-pecking 

 seems to be borne most philosophically 

 by the males, for they ignore their 

 losses and start out merrily in the 

 pursuit of other mates. 



My limited space will not admit of 

 it here, but later on I hone to describe, 

 in another article for The; Guide to 

 Nature, the many kinds and wonder- 

 fully interesting webs and nests that 

 soiders construct, and to have some- 

 thing to say about flying-spiders ; how 

 they treat their young; and, finallv, 



touch on some of the remarkable habits 

 of some species, illustrating much that 

 I present with reproductions of my 

 photographs. 



Robbing a Spider of Its Silk. 



In response to an inquiry as to how 

 to rob a spider of its silk. Dr. Shufeldt 

 writes as follows : 



"It is an easy matter to rob a spider 

 of its silk. When I was a boy, I per- 

 formed the feat on one or two occa- 

 sions. 



"One has to capture a specimen of 

 any of the weavers of the groUp, at a 

 time when it is producing its silk, so 

 that the free end of the thread may be 

 seized. The spider may be held in any 

 convenient manner to keep its legs 

 gently confined, so that they may not 

 struggle and break the silken thread. 

 With this in hand, it may be gently 

 reeled off in any way that meets the 

 end in view. The supply is never 

 large, so the operation is not one of 

 exeat len°;th." 



A Spider, a Carpenter Bee and a Wasp. 



New York City. 

 To the Editor : 



I am sending you a photograph of a 

 spider's nest, which I saw the spider 

 spin on the inside of one of my book- 

 cases. The webs, as you will notice, 

 are fastened partly to the plate glass 

 window, and partly to the woodwork 

 of the bookcase. I think that the best 

 constructive engineer could not have 

 used better judgment than this little 

 spider manifested, in making her nest 

 absolutely secure with the least waste 

 of material and of energy. The win- 

 dow glass was very slippery and highly 

 polished. At first the spider stretched 

 a web from one corner of the wood- 

 work to the other, then let herself down 

 from this "girder" to the glass, and de- 

 posited a drop of glutinous substance 

 and, waiting patiently until that had 

 hardened sufficiently to hold a thread 

 strongly and tightly, she ran along this 

 improvised tight rope back to the 

 woodwork, and fastened the thread at 

 the other end. After a skeleton web 

 had been made, the little worker took 

 down the original cross threads. Each 

 fiber was tested by pulling hard on it, 

 and if it seemed not strong enough, a 

 reenforcinc thread was fastened on it. 



