88 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



In other cases, however, as in the angles of walls, porches, outhouses, 

 etc., the silken egg pad is itself enclosed in a tent of spinuingwork more 

 or less open. (Fig. 60.) In some cases this tent is little more than a 

 series of lines drawn across the angle at a little distance from the cocoon, 



as at Fig. 61. Strix, Sclo- 

 petaria, and Domiciliorum 

 are all in the habit of weav- 

 ing around their cocoons 

 such a tent. 



A Domicile spider, which 

 I found in the act of com- 

 l>leting her cocoon, was con- 

 tent with a scantier cover- 

 ing than this. Her egg sac 

 was an oval mass of yellow- 

 ish brown silk one and one- 

 fourth inch long by three- 

 fourths of an inch wide. It 

 was fastened u])on a twig of 



Fig. 63. Epeira cocoon protected by a tent of close spinniugwork. 



Sheeted 

 Tent. 



a pine tree. At one end short lines were thickly strung across from the 



needle like leaves, making a sort of " fly " or awning. This 

 . ° was rei)eated at the other end, thus about half covering the 



cocoon, ihe mother spider hung to a few threads above (Fig. 

 62) her egg nest, with shrunken abdomen, and so much exhausted as to 

 be little inclined to move. This cocoon was made September 24th. 



For the most part the outer tent is of closer texture than those above 

 described, being in fact an enclosing curtain of silken cloth, through which 



the outline of the cocoon within may be traced. (Fig. 63.) 



Great numbers of these tent enclosed 



cocoons may be seen at the boat liouses 

 near the Inlet of Atlantic City and Cape May. 

 They are made during tlic last days of May 

 and to ihe middle or last of June, and again 

 in the fall.^ The cocoons measure seven-eighths 

 of an inch long by six-eighths of an inch wide, 



and less. The enclosing tent measures 

 Foreordi- ^^.^ .^j-j,| ^^^,q .^^-^^^j .^ j^.^f inches long by 



one and three-eighths inch wide. Fre- 

 quently the tents are overlaid one upon another, or spun close 

 to each other, as at Fig. 58. I have found three large cocoons thus 



nation in 

 Nature. 



Fig. 64. Egg mass of Epeira, show- 

 ing the under sheet and the mass 

 of flossy padding. 



' Of two specimens of Ejieira sdoiietaria kept by me, one cocooned May 22d ; the other 

 May 26th ; a third about the middle of June. An Ejieira domiciliorum cocooned Septem- 

 ber llith. 



