102 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



may even touch them at that time without responsive signs of life. Of 

 course they are then at the mercy of their enemies, to whom, in point of 

 fact, they do fall an easy prey in great numbers. 



One would naturally expect from what has elsewhere^ been written 

 of protective habits, that Nature, intent upon the preservation of the 

 species, would provide some recourse against this peril. Accordingly we 

 find that, upon the approach of the moulting period, many spiders pre- 

 pare for the emergency ; some creep away into crevices of rocks, crannies 

 of walls and fallen wood, hollows of trees and stumps, underneath loose 

 bark, stones, and like sheltered positions. Many species overlap and join 

 together the edges of leaves, and moult within the teut thus formed ; some 

 preempt the cocoons or lodges of other spiders, and some appropriate the 

 nests of sundry insects. 



The Attoids moult within the silken cells which are the characteristic 

 dwellings of the family and make no other provision therefor. Curiously, 

 they have a fancy for cells other than their own, and for old 

 Protect- i-ather than new. They freely avail themselves of strange cells, 

 ive Hab- ^^^^^^ ^j^^ ^^^^^ which appear most to please them are the abandoned 

 * nests within which the females have laid their eggs, after the 

 young have quitted them. Hence, one will sometimes find the shed skin 

 of one or even two vagabond males inside such sites. 



Tubeweavers seek the funneled part of their snare and moult beneath 

 the outspread curtain, as do also the Linyphia). Lycosids moult within 

 their burrows, which they previously close, showing thus the same sense 

 of need that leads them to cover their nests in winter and the cocooning 

 season. 



Orb weavers do not have the same degree of secretiveness at this period ; 

 at least many of them are found moulting upon their snares, as shown in 

 the various accompanying figures, with no special provision for conceal- 

 ment or protection. Often they do not even get behind their webs or seek 

 the shelter of adjacent foliage. The Lineweavers also moult upon their 

 webs, but then their position underneath and within, their maze of crossed 

 lines, as with Theridioids and with Pholcus, would in itself seem to be a 

 good protection. As a general but not invariable rule it may be said that 

 spiders having a fixed abode, as all the sedentary groups of Lycosids that 

 live in burrows, many Attoids, etc., cast their skins on or in their snare or 

 lodge. But those species which have no fixed dwelling seek divers shelters 

 for moulting. 



All the burrowing spiders observed by Mrs. Treat closed their dwellings 

 just before they moulted, and before making their cocoons. When this 

 work was over they cut the threads and threw the covers back, sometimes 

 entirely severing tliem. At other times a sort of hinge was left on one 



' Vol. II., page 407. 



