348 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



Zilla. In point of fact, the Lineweaving habit seems to drop into the 

 spinningwork of all the Orbweavers with more or less facility. Such a 



genus as Argiope is able to swing out 

 from either side of its orb a snare 

 which, considered separately, is entire- 

 ly characteristic of the Lineweavers. 

 (Chapter VI., Fig. 96.) It will proba- 

 bly be sufficient in this connection to 

 refer the reader to the figures and 

 facts contained in Chapter VIII. (See 

 Figs. 115 and 123.) 



An interesting illustration of this 

 commingling of typical habits was 

 once observed upon a bare, 

 Coopera- j^^d branch of 

 tive 

 House- 

 keeping-. 



Fig. 340. Cooperative housekeeping between Epeira 

 labyrinthea and Linyphia communis. 



a bush. 

 Within the branching limbs 

 a Labyrinth spider had es- 

 tablished her peculiar snare. 

 The delicate orb swung 

 at one side, and a maze of crossed lines containing the nest- 

 ing tube was woven above the orb. Close by a female 

 Linyphia communis had spun her snare, which consists of 

 a bowl of loose sheeted spinningwork and a maze of reti- 

 telarian lines hung above it. Now, it so happened that 

 these two neighbors wrought their snares so 

 close to each other that they really interblend- 

 ed. The cross lines of Labyrinthea and the 

 cross lines of Linyphia were so interwoven that fig. 341. The tubular den of Epeira 

 it was impossible for me to determine the thaddeus within a sewed leaf. 



boundary line between the two webs, or 

 to say at what point the work of the one 

 ended and the other began. (Fig. 340.) It 

 was a case of cooperative housekeeping, 

 something like that which I have already 

 illustrated in the case of two Labyrinth 

 spiders (see Fig. 120, page 135), the differ- 

 ence being that in this case the coopera- 

 tion was between species of different tribes, 

 instead of the same species. Nothing could 

 better illustrate the community of habit, 

 Fig. 342. The curled thread of Dictyna on its in the particular of Spinning retitclarian 



supporting radiating lines. (After Emerton.) ,, , . . ... ,, . 



snares, tliaii sucii a juxtaposition as this. 



We have already seen how the tube is used habitually by certain 



species of Orbweavers, as, for example, Epeira strix, Epeira triaranea, Laby- 



