NEST MAKING : ITS ORIGIN AND USE. 



315 



Compar- 

 ative 

 Studies. 



sewing together the leaves, after the nest site is selected and the prepara- 

 tory stages wrought out, that one sees most evident marks of intention on 

 . . the part of the architect. There can be no doubt that here is 

 SewSff™ manifest the deliberate purpose to effectually enclose the dwelling 

 and secure it from intrusion of enemies and inconvenience of 

 weather changes. 



II. 



If now we come to compare the protective industry of Orbweavers with 

 that of other tribes of spiders, even those which mo.st widely differ from 

 them in structure and 

 general life habit, we 

 shall find less essential 

 difference than might 

 have been an- 

 ticipated. The 

 germinal form, 

 or prevailing 

 type of protective archi- 

 tecture, for all tribes, is 

 the tube or some modifi- 

 cation thereof. The en- 

 tire tribe of Tubitelarise, 

 for example, domicile 

 within tubes which do 

 not differ in essential par- 

 ticulars from that which 

 is woven by the orbweav- 

 ing Furrow spider and 

 others of kindred habit, 

 or by Epeira thaddeus. 

 Indeed, the open dome shaped tent of Epeira domiciliorum and other spi- 

 ders is only a modification of the architectural type. The little tube of the 

 Drassids (Fig. 292), and numerous species of Tubitelarife that construct kin- 

 dred domiciles, scarcely differs in any regard from the tube of the Epeiroid 

 Thaddeus and Furrow spiders. In the case of the Speckled Agalena, whose 

 funnel shaped web is known to all familiars of our fields, the tubular part 

 thereof is really the spider's domicile, and the broad sheet outstretched 

 upon leaves, grass, or surrounding surface of its site may be re- 

 garded as a portion of the snare. The same spider protects her- 

 self, as is the case with many Orbweavers, by a maze of straight 

 lines spun above the separating sheet, and which also serves in part to 

 sustain it, and acts besides as a snare to arrest prey. 



If, again, we take such an example as the Medicinal spider, Tegenaria 



Fig. 290. Upper figure : Turret spider's tower built on a pebble founda- 

 tion. Lower figure : inside lining exposed by digging out the sand. 



Tube- 

 weavers. 



