CHAPTER I. 

 TOILET, DRINKING, BURROWING, AND SOCIAL HABITS. 



Contrary to general opinion, spiders are tidy in their personal habits. 

 They are indeed sometimes found in positions suggestive of anything but 

 neatness, and occasionally their webs are much soiled with accu- 

 „ , ., mulated dust, particularly those of tribes which spin sheeted 



webs in cellars, stables, barns, and like places. Even in such 

 cases the creature rises above her environment and keeps her body clean. 

 Orbweavers' webs are rarely seen much soiled by dust or floating refuse of 

 any sort, a fact which of course is chiefly due to the transient life of the 

 snare, which for the most part is limited to a single day. These webs, 

 as we have already seen, are generally made in attractive surroundings 

 among grasses, leaves, and flowers, which would prove a veritable aranead 

 Eden were it not for obtruding evil spirits in the shape of raiding wasps, 

 hungry birds, and other foes. 



When spiders become covered wholly or in part with objectionable mat- 

 ter, whether dew, rain or dust, or soil as in the case of ground workers, 

 they soon proceed to cleanse themselves. Their brushes and 

 J , combs are the hairy armature of the legs and palps, together 



' with the hairs and teeth that arm the mandibles, and these toilet 

 implements are well adapted to the work. Did the habit of cleanliness 

 arise from the possession of these implements'? Or, were the implements 

 developed out of the vital necessity for a cleanly person? 



A large female Domicile spider suspended downward upon a series of 

 cross lines, by her hind legs (Fig. 2), accomplished her toilet sometliing in 

 this wise : The fore leg was drawn up and placed at the tibia between 

 the fangs. It was then slowly drawn outward, the mandibles meanwhile 

 gently squeezed upon it (Fig. 4), until the whole leg had passed through 

 the combing process, when it was stretched out and another leg substituted ; 

 and thus on until all had been cleaned. The palps were combed in the 

 same way, and then were used for cleaning the face and fore part of the 

 mandibles. In this act the palp, after having been drawn through the 

 mouth, perhaps to moisten it, would be thrown to the top of the cajiut, 

 which it overclasped in the position of Fig. 3, and then was gradually 

 drawn down over the eye space and front of the mandibles, smoothing 

 down and cleansing the surface thereof as it was moved along. The 



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