124 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



represents the snare and cocoon of one of these spiders. The mother 

 was hidden within a curtained screen or tower newly spun. On the beam 

 just above the snare hung two cocoons. They were attached above and on 

 the sides to the beam, and in front and on the sides to the flap of the 

 snare. Their position was such that they were just above and in front of 

 the door of the den. One of them was covered with black particles of 

 dust. They were about half an inch in diameter. Figs. 132 and 133 are 

 views of tlie manner in which the cocoons were suspended. One often 

 finds these cocoons woven into the texture of abandoned snares in cellars 

 and outhouses. Fig. 130 is a sketch of such a web hanging in a window 

 of my church cellar. The pouch like snare stretched upward to the window 

 roof, and at the bottom, on either side of the tube or tower, three button 

 shaped cocoons were inserted. They were still white when sketched in 



midwinter, although the web was 

 jfef/i^^ much soiled with the cellar dust 



and soot. I do not know that 



all three cocoons were made by 



one mother. 



Coelotes mcdicinalis (Tegena- 



ria pcrsica Hentz) usually spins 



her cocoons on or near her snare. 



I have found in one snare two 

 ^ ,„, globular cocoons covered with bits 



Fig. 132. Fli.. 133. » ■ l 1 



Fuis. 132, 133. Suspended cocoons of Tegenaria derhamii. of clay. One Contained rOUlld 



^^^^^'^'^^^'^ whitisli eggs; the other had liv- 



ing spiderlings with white cephalotliorax and greenish abdomen. 



Agroeca brunnea ' is an English species. The sexes pair in Ma}', 

 and in the month of June the female constructs an elegant vase shaped 

 cocoon of wliite silk, of a fine compact structure, attached by a short foot 

 stalk to rushes, stems of grass, heath, or gorse. It measures about one- 

 fourth inch in diameter, and contains from forty to fifty yellowish splier- 

 ical eggs, enveloped in white silk, connected with the anterior surface of 

 the cocoon, contiguous to the foot stalk. Greatly to the disadvantage of 

 its appearance, the cocoon is smeared with moist soil, wliich when dried 

 serves to protect it from the weatlier, and, as an additional security, the 

 extremity is closed and directed downward.'^ In the illustration (Fig. 131) 

 the uppermost cocoon is shown as it is first spun, the two lower cocoons 

 as they appear when plastered. Another drawing (Fig. 135) of this beau- 

 tiful cocoon, which has attracted the attention of all English araneologists, 

 is taken from Rev. Pickard-Cambridge. With it is a .similar cocoon of 

 an English congener, Agroeca proxima (Fig. 136), woven like the former 

 species upon a twig of heather. ^ 



1 Agalena brunnea Blckw. - Blackwall, Spid. Gt. B. & I., page 160, pi. xii., Fig. 102. 

 ' Spiders of Dorset, Vol. I., pi. ii., Fig. 7. 



