252 AMEKICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



skill, are exercised in their utmost plenitude by baby spiders fresh from 

 their cocoons. A few additional illustrations may be here grouped to- 

 gether, although many examples are scattered throughout these pages. 



A brood of Agalena nasvia hatched within a fruit jar, showed in a rather 

 curious way the tendency of young spiders to imitate the {)arental snare. 

 A leaf or two and several dry twigs had been placed within the 

 • , ° , l)ottle, and these formed points of support for the delicate, sheeted 

 spinningwork which the young Agalenas were not long in spin- 

 ning. Soon a hollow cylinder of silk was woven inside the jar, (juite near 

 the glass. Now, the habit of this spider in natural site is to pierce her 

 sheeted snare with a circular opening, to which is attached a funnel like 

 tube leading downwards into the grass. The limitations of our imprisoned 

 spiderlings would not permit them to form such a structure ; but, yielding 

 to the tendency of inherent instinct, they penetrated the sheeted cylinder 

 with circular holes, which, curiously, were placed in little groups at various 

 points. (See Fig. 2()0.) Through these openings the spiderlings came and 

 went, and, although they were continually adding to the texture of the 

 sheeted common by the draglines which they carried after 

 them, I never observed that the circular holes were closed. 



When these little Agalenas make their exode in natural 

 site, and have the opportunity to pursue unobstructed their 

 natural tendency, they spin a little miniature of the maternal 

 snare, except that, as a rule, the funnel like tube is not quite 

 as distinctly marked, and does not form so prominent a part 

 Fig. 267. A young of the 'web. At the period when the Agalena broodlings are 

 Aga ena niEvia. igg^iJ^g from their cocoons they may be seen dispersed over 

 all manner of surrounding surfaces, upon which they have spun their 

 peculiar snares. They hang them between blades of grass, stretch them 

 across the surfaces of leaves, weave them within the angles of houses and 

 walls, in all kinds of crannies and corners, upon rocks, and boards, and 

 logs, and bits of dry wood ; and I have often observed them by scores 

 and hundreds spun during an evening over the broken clods of a recently 

 spaded garden patch, or along the furrows of a plowed field. These tiny 

 sheeted nests, when seen of an autumn morning covered with the beaded 

 drops of dew and glistening in the early sunlight, present a remarkably 

 beautiful appearance. A sketch of one of these dew covered nests is given 

 at Fig. 268. 



M. Lucas observed on the pai't of certain young Trapdoor si)iders, 

 Cteniza moggridgii, a behavior somewhat resembling that of these young 

 Agalenas, but disjjlaying even more decidedly the specific industrial char- 

 acteristics. Mr. Moggridge sent some of the Ctenizas by mail to M. Lucas, 

 at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, enclosed in little, wide mouthed, cylin- 

 drical glass bottles. The young Trapdoors, in transitu or shortly there- 

 after, lined the bottles with silk and then jjroceeded to clo.se them at the 



