222 



AMEKIOAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



weaver. Her snares are found in all sorts of positions and locations. In 

 the angles of houses and walls, among leaves of trees, in shrubs and grasses, 

 in old stumps, and caves and holes in the ground, wherever a 

 Trest- footing can be bad and a s[)inneret can be laid, this univer- 

 pj sal occupant of outhouses and grounds }>roceeds to weave her 



snare. Under all circumstances she shows rare ability to adapt 

 it to the particular site where chance has fixed her abode. If bracing is 

 recjuired from above she sends upward a series of lines which support 

 her sheeted snare. If bracing is required from below, as we have seen 

 (Fig. 208), she sends out a series of trestle lines, which keep the sheet in 

 poise, and suggest the methods of carpenters when scaffolding a platform 

 or floor, or trestling a . bridge. If bracing be needed both above and be- 

 low, as in the pouched snare (Fig. 209) woven between the bars of a farm 



fence, the lines are sent 

 out in the very positions 

 to give the recjuircd sup- 

 port. In fact, a civil en- 

 gineer would decide, up- 

 on examination, that his 

 profession could have sug- 

 gested no better arrange- 

 ment under the circum- 

 stances. 



In the lawns and 

 ^)hia, and indeed almost every- 

 Agalena's snare will often be seen 

 sheet upon the ujiper surface of 

 such as arbor vita;, boxwood, 

 and honeysuckle. Into these she works a silk lined cylindri- 

 cal tunnel, which extends to the very heart of the ])lant, and 

 often to the ground beneath. She manages, in some way, so to lash back 

 the stems and twigs that, in spite of the natural elasticity and growth 

 force of the plant, the tubular den or home is held quite in 



Tubular 

 Bridges. 



place. Not only so, but the sheeted web will be stayed and 

 held in position by a series of lines that seem to display no 

 little skill in adjustment. She thus places a tubular bridge between her 

 foraging ground and her retreat. 



Once while visiting a brother, the late Connnander Khoderick Siieldon 

 McCook, U. S. N., at his home in Vineland, N. J., my attention was called 

 by him to one of these snares of Agalena built upon an evergreen bush 

 planted in his j'ard. The comments of the sailor were striking and 

 characteristic, and I regret that I cannot accurately recall them now. But 

 I well remember the amazement which he expressed as he pointed to this 

 point and that in the structure of the snare, and compared it to tlu' shrouds 



