CHAPTER XIV. 



DEATH AND ITS DISGUISES, HIBERNATION AND 

 DEATH FEIGNING. 



As one passes through the fields in the latter part of September or 



early in October he marks the cessation of activity on the part of Ar- 



giope cophinaria. The splendid creatures, whose restless vigor 



,. ® f in spinningwork and ferocious activity in capturing prey were so 



. . aijparent a few weeks before, have nearly all disap])eared. The 



males have gone weeks before. Not one of the courtiers that 



were seen hanging around the outer courts of their lady loves' snares has 



survived the mating season. Occasionally one notes a female, a shrunken 



remnant of her former self, suspended in listless mood upon a tattered 



web, or crawling sluggishly around the circle of her orb, weaving in her 



spirals as though spreading a table for the last banquet that life affords. 



A little further on one will see the dead forms of otiier individuals hang- 

 ing in various postures from broken snares, or from tattered remnants of the 

 silken shield, or from snatches of cross lines dangling from leaves and 

 bowers. Still further, as one moves on, he sees fragments of the once beau- 

 tiful snares stretched out at various points between the grasses and branches 

 of low lying shrubbery. The strands flutter in the breeze. The great cen- 

 tral patch of white silk flaunts like a tattered banner after a battle. The 

 radii are snapped, the spirals have lost their viscidity, or have only retained 

 them to capture hapless insects that expire without even the poor satisfac- 

 tion of helping rejuvenate exhausted Nature by rendering tlieir lives an of- 

 fering to the vigor of another creature. The race of Argiope is gone for 

 the current year. 



Where are these noble araneads that so lately brightened and enlivened 

 the landscape? They have crawled away into various nooks beneath em- 

 bowering leaves or other cozy retreats, and there have woven the beautiful 

 basket like cocoons which characterize the species. The last force of life 

 has been expended in this act and, somewhere near, the dry and shriveled 

 corpse of Cophinaria may be found hanging, after a little w-hile, to the 

 threads on which she perished, soon to be washed down by the rains of 

 autumn and mingled with the dust beneath. When the warmth of spring 

 has once more revived the earth, another generation will issue from these 

 cocoons and go forth to follow the life round of the race that lias now 

 passed away. This record of the decline and fall of Argiope is a picture 



(410) 



