430 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



III. 



If one will go to any woodside or other spot where the foliage of trees 

 and vines has been amassed, and examine one after another the withered 

 leaves, he will have opened to him a new and interesting chap- 

 „ ^.. ter in the life of spiders. This process is familiarlj- known as 



" sifting," and it is an admirable method of collecting in the 

 »late autumn, winter, or the early spring. Clear away the mass of snow 

 overlying that windrow of withered leaves, fill a generous basket full, and 

 carry them into your study. Open carefully the curled leaves one after 

 another, and you will find a number of spiders of various species, that 

 have found their winter refuge and rest within these seemingly inade- 

 quate receptacles. 



Here are Saltigrades, nested within their white, thick, silken cells. 

 Here are all sorts of Tubeweavers, Disderids, Drassids, Agalena, Tegenaria, 

 Dictyna. Some of them are underneath silken cells, others clinging to 

 simple strings of intersecting lines. If the weather be very cold, most of 

 them will be found quite torpid ; but in the warm atmosphere of the 

 room they will soon renew their vitality and freely creep about. If the 

 temperature be mild, or if the sifting be made at that part of the year 

 which lies just between winter and spring, the spiders will have recovered 

 from their hibernation, but many of them will be certain, as soon as they 

 feel the touch of the inquisitive observer, to double themselves up in that 

 strange mimicry of death which marks so many species. 



Such an examination as tlie above has increased my surprise at the 

 immense host of spiders that must be preserved throughout the winter by 

 nestling under leaves and forest mold. The autumn broods of 

 Hibernat- younglings here find refuge in numbers, and when the snows 

 ing in iiave been melted away by the south wind and the increasing 

 lieat of the sun, they creep forth from their leafy lairs and 

 enter upon the active duties of their lives. Nearly all species in all tlie 

 several tribes thus find winter homes in such places. This is not onlj' 

 true of the woods and wild fields, but of the lawns, groves, and parks sur- 

 rounding suburban and city homes. When the bright, soft days of April 

 come, and the gardener begins his annual task of raking withered leaves 

 together and burning them, my heart has many a spasm of i)ity at the 

 reflection that this seemingly harmless and necessary work is the holocaust 

 of millions of hapless spiders. Thus, even in tlie discharge of ordinary 

 duties, man is unconsciously one of the most destructive enemies of the 

 children of Arachne. 



A good time to uncover the winter habits of spiders in the latitude 

 of Philadelphia is the early or middle part of April. Frequently there 

 will come a few successive days of warm sunshine, particularly if the 

 preceding winter has been mild, that invite tlie Sedentary sjiiders from 



