THE FEATHERFOOT SPIDER, ULOBORUS PLUMIPES. 



173 



Hentz observed the species on limestone rocks on the banks of Cyi»rus 

 Creek, and in moist places in North Alabama. Its congener, U. mamme- 

 atus, he found dwelling most frequently in cavities, among large logs, and 

 in hollow trunks of trees. ^ Emerton found Plumipes between loose stones 

 or low buslies in New England. Mrs. Peckham almost invariably found 

 this species building in dead branches, six out of seven being thus located. ^ 

 She gives an apt abstract of its habits. In form and color it resembles 

 a scrap of bark ; its body is truncated and diversified with small humps, 

 Avhile its first legs are very uneven, bearing heavy fringes of hair on the 

 tibia, and having the terminal joints slender. Its color is a soft wood 





Fiij. 160. Orbweb of Uloborus, spun in the opening of a hollow 



stump. 



brown or gray, mottled with white. It has the habit of hanging motion- 

 less in the web for hours at a time, swaying in the wind like an inani- 

 mate object. The strands of its web are rough and inelastic, so that they 

 are frequently broken, and this gives it the appearance of one of those 

 dilapidated and deserted webs in which bits of windblown rubbish are 

 fre({uently (Mitangled. 



Baron W'alckenaer says that the closely related European s})ecies, Ulo- 

 borus Walckenacrius Duges, generally spins its horizontal snare between 

 the stems of rushes in dry and warm places, which resembles that of 

 Epeira in form, but of looser tissue.^ Ilahn found the species in the 



' rhillyi-a iiiainineata. " Spi(l(>rs of tho rnihMl Ptati'?," i)a<r».' 120. 



- '■ I'mtoitive lvc'.<t'Uil)laiues in SpiiU'i-s." (,)crasional l'ai»i'i-s of the Natural llis-tury .So- 

 ciety of Wisconsin, Vol. I., lS8i), pajre 77. By George W. & Elizabetli G. Peckham. 

 * Apteres (Suites a Butlbn), Vol. II., page 229. 



