112 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



which she remams until nightfall. She thus shuns the liymenopterous ene- 

 mies who hunt in the sunshine, and is in position to capture the night 

 flying insects, among which chiefly she finds lier prey. So per- 

 Noctur- sistent is this habit that Strix will rarely leave her hiding place by 

 nal Activ- j^^y even to take the insects that become entangled in the snare. 

 ^ ^" When the night begins to fall she may be seen swinging in the air 



against the darkening sky, laying in the foundations of her net and spin- 

 ning her orb. It is surprising how many of these creatures start into 

 activity in sites where their presence is not suspected. The skipper of a 

 yacht on the St. Lawrence River, during a fishing trip, complained to me 

 that the spiders were a great nuisance to him ; that he brushed away num- 

 bers of cobwebs every day, but that in the morning he was sure to find the 

 vessel again fringed and laced with their webs. He could never make out 

 where they all came from, or how they got aboard the ship. 



I was able to solve the man's perplexity. A few days before, while 

 coming down the river in the passenger steamer about twilight, I had no- 

 ticed my aranead friends dangling from various parts of the boat, engaged 

 in their tentative efforts at web building. Thereupon I examined the under 

 parts of the railing and the cornices of projecting parts of the deck, and 

 discovered a large number of Orbweavers, principally Epeira strix, young 

 and old, male and female, curled up against the woodwork or 

 Spider domiciled in silken nests. I called our skipper's attention to sim- 

 Stowa- ^-^^^^ localities on his own boat, which were occupied in like man- 

 ner, and his wonder at once ceased. He had innocently thought 

 that clearing away the webs had disposed of the weavers. He never imag- 

 ined what a colony of unbidden passengers or "stowaways" he was carry- 

 ing, who kept to their dens by day, and at night, when the yacht was laid 

 up, turned out, spun their webs, and were back to their retreats before the 

 good sailor men were astir the next morning. 



This example illustrates and explains a mystery in spider manners that 

 has puzzled many housekeepers, viz., " Where do the cobwebs come from ? " 

 The query should be, rather, " Whither do their spinners go ? " 



When the snare is spun the Orbweaver takes position at the hub with 

 her head downward. The artists do, indeed, persist in putting her upon 

 the web with head upward, but facts are against them. The 

 Position Orbweaver never assumes that position except when she turns to 

 % -u^ run to her nest or to take prey, in which cases she may remain 

 stationary for a few minutes, but will soon resume her inverted 

 posture. As the nest or retreat of the Epeiroid is usually above the median 

 horizontal line of the orb, one would think that the head upward position 

 would be the safer one as affording an easier approach to her refuge in 

 case of danger. But on the contrary the naturalness of the inverted 

 posture appears from the fact that when the s})ider is witliin her teni, 

 as she generally is except at night, the head is then turned downward 



