THE LINYPHIADiE 



149 



October and November, when they, in company with the 

 young of many larger kinds of spiders, come to the tops of 

 posts and fences and, turning their spinnerets upward, allow 

 threads to be drawn out by ascending currents of air, until 

 sometimes the 

 spiders are lifted 

 off their feet and 

 carried long dis- 

 tances. Though 

 not so easily seen, 

 the same perform- 

 ance is going on at 

 the tops of grass 

 and bushes, and at 

 times the whole 

 country is covered 

 with threads of silk, 

 and the threads in 

 the air tangle to- 

 gether into flakes, 

 which at length 

 fall, sometimes from great heights. This appearance is called 

 in England "gossamer" and in Germany the "flying summer" 

 and the "old woman's summer." Why the spiders spin the 

 thread and what use it is to them to be blown about are 

 unknown. At the time of the autumn flights great numbers 

 of these spiders may be seen on fences and doorsteps in city 

 streets wherever there is a neighboring park or grass plat, and 

 the spiders probably live the rest of the year among this grass 

 near the ground. 



Erigone longipalpis and dentigera. — These spiders are a tenth 

 of an inch to a twentieth of an inch long and generally dark 

 brown in color, with the cephalothorax smooth and shining. 



Fig. 360. Erigone dentigera trying to fly. Enlarged eight 

 times. From a photograph on Boston Common. 



