SOCIAL HABITS OF SPIDERS. 35 



on the one hand cori'espond generally with the several stages on the other. 

 Third, on the whole, the mechanical skill of the Tunnelweavers gives 

 a more finished product. Fourth, progression in botli series is from an 

 equally primitive habitat upward to the most complex and complete, thus 

 making the two series entirely independent, and not the one a continuation 

 of and development from the other. 



I am quite aware that this language is analogical and nothing more, 

 as there is no information in my possession which permits us to think of 

 the Tunnelweavers and their industrial habits as actually developed from 

 the Lycosids (or the reverse) in any sense known to science. Nor is there 

 evidence of improvement in the nesting skill of any single species, within 

 which the character of the architecture is persistently unchanged. Nor is 

 there proof of a gradation in the architecture of any species corresjionding 

 with the faunal position of the architect. My purpose is simply to point 

 out the marked analogies which present themselves in the study of the 

 architecture of the various species of the two suborders. For a grouping 

 of facts which seem to extend this analogy, as to the essential factor of a 

 tubular web, over the wider field of the entire order Araneas, the reader is 

 referred to my Vol. I., Chapter XVIII. 



X. 



In a preceding volume of this work^ I have considered with some de- 

 tail the tendency of spiders to assemble in communities. The observations 

 of Darwin, Azara, and others on what they supposed to be the 

 s -A gregarious or social habits of adult spiders are there noticed, and 



the opinion expressed that the examples cited were accidental 

 assemblages of individuals lield together in close neighborhood by various 

 favorable circumstances, but with individual metes and bounds more or less 

 distinct^ marked. Nevertheless, in view of the possibilities of Nature, such 

 a conclusion was held with reservation. I there further show that, in the 

 babyhood of numerous species, spiderlings quite invariably maintain assem- 

 blages, and dwell together peacefully, or at least with few breaches 

 Baby q£ fraternity ; a state of amity which is maintained until Nature 

 ommu- pj,Qj^-,p^g ^]^g individuals to a wider individual life, at which time 

 the assemblages are broken up, and the natural solitary habit 

 and ferocity of the order assert themselves. 



I have often pondered whether this strong habit, fixed upon the early 

 life of spiders, might not have formed a basis for the development, in adult 

 life, of some such companionship, fraternity, and unity as mark the social 

 Hymenoptera, so well illustrated in ants and wasps. It does not at first 

 thought seem strange that a habit so marked in babyhood should be car- 

 ried forward and become permanent in adult character and life. Yet, so 



1 Vol. II., pages 230-241. 



