THE TRIANGLE SPIDER : THE ORB SECTOR. 



191 



ing ; slowly rolls the insect in swatliing thread until it assumes the ap- 

 pearance of a round flossy ball. One female tliat I observed was a 

 long time in thus preparing for her banquet. The spirals of 



®® .^"^ her web had been broken in 



Habits. • , , 1 



the capture, a suigle thread 



alone remaining. In another example 

 observed the entire interradial system 

 was obliterated. 



This, however, is not, as Wilder 

 supposes, a peculiar habit. I have fre- 

 quently noticed Epeiroids doing pre- 

 cisely the same thing. The only differ- 

 ence is that in the case of the latter a 

 space consisting of two, three, or four 

 radii would be cut out, leaving thus 



Fig. 183. Outlines of a relaxed net after service. 



large circle or wedge shaj^ed gap 

 in the snare. This gaj) corresponds almos't precisely to the appearance of 

 the Triangle spider's net after she has cut out the entangled fly and com- 

 pleted the enswathment preparatory to feeding. Of course, however, as 

 Hyptiotes makes only a sector of a circle, she has nothing left of her snare 

 after the insect is thus prepared ; whereas spiders making circular webs 

 have a goodly portion of their orbs intact and ready for service after one 

 sextant is destroyed. Substantially, then, we may say that the same thing 

 occurs with the snare of Hyptiotes and the snare of Epeira when the en- 

 tangled insect is captured, cut out, and enswatlied. 



I noticed what seemed to me a remarkable peculiarity in the manner 

 of swathing and feeding upon a gnat taken by one of these spiders. Hyp- 

 tiotes hung to her trapline by the two fore feet, which were stretched out 

 quite at length from either side, as represented in Fig. 184. Her jaws and 

 palpi appeared to me (although I could not quite make this out) to be 

 sujiported upon the trajjline. At least they overreached that, line and 

 grasped the partly enswatlied insect, which lay over the line on the side 

 opjiosite the spider's body. The palps reaching upward from one side and 

 the third feet reaching beneath from the other side revolved the insect, 



wliile the hind legs paid out the 

 silk and manipulated the swathing 

 as represented at Fig. 184. The atti- 

 tude was an extremely odd one, and 

 had the savor of that grotesqueness 

 which seems to me alwaj^s to mark 

 the apjaearance and behavior of this 

 aranead. 



When the fly was sufficiently secured it was carried back to the trap- 

 line, whereupon Hyptiotes rolled herself over beneath her line in the ordi- 

 nary posture, laid hold of the trapline by the two hind pairs of legs, and 



Fifi. 184. The Triangle spider swathing a fly. 



