132 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND .THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



thcat one can tear it. Walckenaer found, August 20tb, twenty-six spider- 

 lings perfectly developed enclosed within a cocoon. Each was about a 

 millimetre long, of a milk white color, the eyes not very distinct. In 

 another cocoon, found at the same period, he counted twenty-three eggs. 

 He saw no web near the tube in the neighborhood of the cocoons. ^ Ex- 

 amples of the same mode of treating cocoons by the European Agroeca 

 brunnea have already been given. 



While walking through the fields near the home of Mr. F. M. Camp- 

 bell, at Hoddesdon, Hertz, England, I 

 noticed a number of pretty, spherical 

 nests which had been formed by mass- 

 ing together spikelets of a species of 

 grass. A ball about the size of a hick- 

 ory nut, that is to say, one inch in di- 

 ameter, was thus formed. At first sight 

 I took this to be the work of lepidop- 

 terous larvte, but upon plucking some 

 nests the spinningwork which bound the 

 spikelets together appeared to be spider 

 silk rather than that of a moth larva. 



One of tlie nests was therefore opened 

 and pro veil to contain a species of Dras- 

 sid which I took to be a Clubiona. 

 Unfortunately, the specimens which I 

 had preserved for further examination 

 were lost, and I can only give this 

 general identification. The species, as I 

 remembered it, seemed much like our 

 American Clubiona pallens, or the Eng- 

 lish Clubiona hollosericea. The drawings (Fig. 158) were made 

 from specimens which I brought home, and ujjon careful ex- 

 amination prove beyond doubt to be the home nest of a spi- 

 der, woven upon heads of a grass somewhat resembling maize, 

 probably Leersia oryzoides Swz., or Rice Cut-grass. When cut 

 open, a hollow sphere of white silk is disclosed, which is the dainty cell 

 in which the aranead lived. A veritable fairy palace ! Among the British 

 Clubionidas, as described by Blackwall and Staveley, I can only find one 

 species, Clubiona erratica, whose habits would suggest such a nest as this. 

 The cocoon of this species is white and nearly round. The mother places 

 it in a nest, around winch she forms a guard by binding together the 

 branches of firs or other plants in the midst of which she is placed. She 

 remains in the nest with her young. '^ 



Fii,. 158. Cocooning nest of 

 au English Drassid, woven 

 upon tops of grass. (From 



Nature.) 



Apteres, Volume II., page 14. 



Staveley, British Spiders, page 110. 



