STRENGTH OF WEBS AND POWER OF SPIDERS. 



237 



Relative 

 Sizes. 



The observers were uirfortunately unable to await the issue of the mat- 

 ter, and therefore caught the combatants in the bottle, partly filled with 

 water. The fish swam languidly at the bottom of the vessel, and the 

 spider stood sentinel on the surface, turning when the fish turned, 

 and watching every motion. The bottle was set aside and visited 

 after an interval of three hours. The spider was tlien found 

 dead at the bottom of the jar, but the fish was alive and lived twenty-four 

 hours afterward. The spider was three-fourths of an inch long and weighed 

 fourteen grains ; the fish was three and one-fourth inches long and weighed 

 sixty-six grains. The spider was probably bruised by the catching. The 

 spider referred to may have been an example of Lycosa lenta or L. fati- 

 fera, or more probably Dolomedes tenebrosus, all of which grow to great size 

 along streams of water, f ia.e^.^ ^^afe^v- gr-^=:>-, ,-> :^^ I have seen very large 



examples of D. tenebro 

 the Thousand Islands in 

 upon various streams in the 



One of the most remarkable 

 chanical powers of spiders is 

 The account is authen 

 A Spider j^^gj^ts of a number of 

 of the occurrence, Bata 

 David E. Evans found 

 snake, nine inches long, suspended 

 tween two shelves. The snake 

 reach the shelf below it, by about 

 two feet apart, and the lower one 

 lar window, through which the fid. 220. a 

 From the upper shelf there hung ^"'''"' ''° 



Ensnares 

 a Snake. 



sus along the rocks of 

 the St. Lawrence River, and 

 vicinity of Philadelphia, 

 records of the pliysical and me- 

 made in Silliman's .Journal. ^ 

 tieated by the names and state- 

 gentlemen resident in the vicinity 

 via, New York. One evening Hon. 

 in his wine cellar a live striped 

 by the tail in a spider's web be- 

 hung so that its head could not 

 an inch. The shelves were about 

 was just below the bottom of a eel- 

 snake probably passed into it. 

 a web in the shape of an inverted 

 ter at the top, and concentrated to 

 from the under side of this shelf. 



tangled in 



cone, eight or ten inches in diame a spider-s 

 a focus about six or eight inches ^™''' 

 From this focus there was a strong cord made of the multiplied threads of 

 the spider's web, apparently as large as sewing silk, and by this cord the snake 

 was suspended. A rude sketch of the serpent suspended in the web was 

 made by an eye witness, and is exactly reproduced at Fig. 220. A close 

 examination showed that the snake's mouth was entirely closed by a num- 

 ber of threads wound around it. Its tail was tied in a knot so as to leave a 

 small loop or ring, through which the cord was fastened, as seen in the fig- 

 ure. The end of the tail above (cephalad of) this loop, to the length of 

 half an inch, was lashed fast to the cord to keep it from slipping. As the 

 snake hung, the length of the cord from its tail to the focus to wliich it 

 was fastened was about six inches. A little above the tail was a round 

 ball about the size of a pea, which upon inspection appeared to be a green 



AimTiiMii Jdunwl of Science and Arts, XXVII., 1835, page 80(, sq. 



