442 AMERICAN SPIDEKS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



its waj' home after the (hinger is over. There would thus be a double 

 advantage in absolute quiet. ^ It will be remembered that as a spider 

 drops from a web or other roosting place it spins a line, which forms a 

 straight path backward from the starting point to the stopping 

 Origin of point. It can thus easily return to its snare or roost by means 

 Feieninff °^ ^^^^^ trapline, provkled it remains quiet at the first point of 

 stoppage. But, if the spider moves, its trapline becomes a drag- 

 line, the end of whicli adheres to the first point of stoppage ; after another 

 short interval this is attached to another point, and so on, to another 

 alid another as the spider moves. 



Now, the Peckhanis think that this last action tends to confuse a spi- 

 der, and make its patli homeward indirect. In this view they seem to 

 think themselves justified by some experiments made with the Labyrinth 

 spider, and to some extent I liave no douljt they are correct. But I hardly 

 agree with them in the importance whieli they give to this fact as em- 

 phasizing tlie theory that it would be of great value to the spider to re- 

 main quiet at the point first reached after dropping from its web. It 

 seems to me that it is not difficult for a spider to return by its dragline 

 to the point where it might reach its dropline, unless, indeed, it should 

 wander far into the mazes of leaves, or by any misfortune its dragline 

 should be broken and tlius lose its trail. The truth or falsity of this 

 view is interesting, because of the opinion of the Peckhams that the pos- 

 sibility of losing itself makes it much more to the interest of the spider 

 to remain quiet at the place it first reached when dropping from its snare ; 

 and, further, that tliis usefulness of the quiet attitude may have been the 

 starting point from which, by natural selection or otherwise, the death 

 feigning habit may have been developed. 



The matter seems to me to require further test before one can posi- 

 tively decide. At all events, the Peckhams accept Darwin's explanation 

 of the habit of lying motionless as the result of natural selection, and 

 that it has been acquired by different species in different degrees accord- 

 ing to its usefulness in their various modes of life. Thus we find it in its 

 greatest development among the comparatively sluggish Epeirids, wliereas 

 it is badly developed or lacking in the running or jumjnng spiders which 

 are able, as any one who has pursued them will testify, to move with as- 

 tonishing rapidity.'-* 



In connection with this subject the question naturally arises as to 



whether insects show any sign of fear in the presence of spiders. Can-qi- 



bell only once observed an attitude in a fly which might be taken 



Flies '^'^ coincident with fright paralysis. The fly was about one and 



a half inch from Tegenaria domestica, was busy cleaning itself, 



when suddenly it stood motionless in the very act of rubbing its claws 



' Op. cit., page 413. - Ibid., page 417. 



