190 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



ascertain the exact location of the fly by piilhng upon the radii. Having 

 satisfactorily decided this, she runs along the loosened radius and some- 

 times, when the prey is small or hopelessly entangled, contents 

 4-if ^^p''^^^ herself by pulling it up by means of the lines about it, and car- 

 ries it to her accustomed station, to be eaten at leisure. More 

 frequently she moves along the trapline, and almost entirely destroys the 

 triangular section which forms the web. This action is thus correctly de- 

 scribed by Professor Wilder : — ■ 



Before reaching the apex the spider cuts with her jaws the apex line, 

 but as she maintains her hold in front of the cut by her first and second 

 pairs of feet, and has a communication in the rear through the line which 

 most spiders always attach to a point behind them, she does not fall, 

 neither is the net loosened beyond a certain limit ; it usually seems to 

 recoil about an inch ; this recoil tends to entangle the prey like 

 the original snap of the net. The spider again advances, gathers 

 the radii togeth 

 drawn out be- 

 hind ; again the 

 net recoils and 

 collapses. Again 

 she advances 

 and cuts the 

 radii ; the net 

 is now hardly 



distinguishable as such, and is falling together 

 about the devoted fly ; the spider now spreads her 

 legs, gathers the net between them and flings it like a 

 blanket over her victim. Struggles are in vain ; but " to make 

 assurance doubly sure" the spider grasps the mass, transfers it to 

 her third pair of legs, and with them turns it over and over as 

 a ball, hanging the while by her front legs ; and with the hinder 

 pair, used alternately, draws out from the exi)anded spinnerets broad sheets 

 of silk which, relatively to the power of the fly, are like steel bands upon 

 a man. 



Having in this way reduced the prey to a rounded ball, in which its 

 limbs are hardly distinguishable, the spider takes it in her jiiws and mounts 

 to her place. A single fly of ordinary size seems to occupy a whole day 

 in the eating. When finished, the remains are cast down as a pellet, so 

 l)erfectly deprived of moisture that it is })robable that this species, like 

 Ne[)hila and perhaps all Epeirida^, sucks out the gum of its old net and 

 reelaljorates it for use in making a new one.^ 



My observations of the feeding habits of Hyptiotes correspond with 

 those of Professor Wilder. She is very deliberate in her mode of proceed- 



FiG. 182. Condition of Hypti 

 otes' net when sprung upon a 

 fly. (After Wilder.) 



^ Op. cit., ]>ag(> (>r>l. 



