PROCURING FOOD AND FEEDING. 



255 



Fig. 235. A mummied fly trussed up. 



are used to cling by, Avliile the third and first pairs are used to turn 

 and handle the flies. 



Curiously enough the Orbweaver, although she makes her snare for 

 the express purpose of capturing her food, sometimes shows a manifest 



unwillingness to have 



"A Time ., .. 



, „ ,, it serve its purpose in 



any other than the reg- 

 ular and approved manner. On 

 one occasion I saw an insect 

 strike the orb of a Furrow spi- 

 der, and on another occasion that 

 of a Domicile spider, when the 

 snares were only partly spun. 

 Both animals acted precisely 

 alike — they seized and swathed 

 the flies, but, instead of feeding 

 upon them then and there, hung 

 them up for future use and re- 

 sumed their net building. I have 

 seen this act repeated many times 

 by various species. Another spider (Epeira domiciliorum) having caught 

 and wrapped up an insect that had struck her unfinished net, deliberately 

 and, as I fancied, with a show of indignation, cut away and cast out the 

 trussed captive from the snare ! It was a most emphatic illustration of the 

 proverb, "A time to keep and a time to cast away." I laughed heartily at 

 the action, which I involuntarily associated with some ultra conservative 

 human friends of mine, who are most unready to receive truth and other 

 blessings that do not come to them through the ordinary 

 and approved channels. Doubtless the instinct of net 

 building, in the above cited cases, when once excited, 

 proved too strong to be seriously diverted or delayed by 

 any ordinary conflicting sensation. 



Influenced apparently by the same impulse, I have seen 

 a Vertebrata and also Cophinaria stopping in the midst of 

 laying in spiral lines to secure and swathe an insect which 

 had struck the orb. In these cases, instead of leaving the 

 insect swathed and trussed up for future use and then 

 Fici.236. A trussed returning to the work of completing the spirals, the spiders 

 fly hung out in jjg]j ^|-jg capturcd ])rev within their mandibles, resumed 



Acrosoma's web. ^ ," , . . 



their work, and carried the victim around during the en- 

 tire process. The web com})leted, the quarry was taken to the centre 

 and fed upon leisurely. In both cases about half of the spiral space had 

 been finished before the insects struck the web and became entangled within 

 its meshes. 



