124 SPIDERS : THEIR STRUCTURE AND HABITS. 



Was this known to Solomon when he wrote, " The spider taketh 

 hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces " ? 



Inferior in interest to the Epeiridce, but worthy of more than a 

 passing notice, on account of certain peculiarities of structure, and 

 the singularity of their webs, are the Ciniflotiidce^ or Hair-Curlers. 

 The Ciniflo atrox^ one of the best representatives of the family, is 

 a very common spider, from J to J inch long : it frequents crevices 

 in old walls, or the branches of trees growing against walls, and 

 spins a web of somewhat close texture and woolly appearance, 

 with a funnel-shaped passage of thin silk conducting to its retreat. 



The Cinifiotiidce have two peculiarities in their structure : — 



(i) They have four pairs of spinnerets (Plate 12, Fig. 3). 

 The upper pair are three-jointed and longer than the rest ; the two 

 intermediate pairs are two-jointed ; while the fourth pair are the 

 shortest of all, and are situated beneath the lower of the two 

 intermediate pairs. They consist of a single joint only, and are 

 sometimes connected throughout their entire length ; they are 

 conical in figure, but truncated, so that their appearance is that 

 of flat oblong plates, studded with a vast number of exceedingly 

 minute papillae. Those who have examined them under 

 sufficiently high powers profess to have counted 1250 papillae 

 on each plate, or 2500 on the pair; whereas there are not more 

 than 1 1 2 on the remaining six altogether — an enormous prepon- 

 derance. But the minuteness of these papillae is equally astonish- 

 ing, each one being only i — 40th of the size of those belonging 

 to the third pair, which last are smaller than those of an Epeira : 

 they are, in fact, not more than i — 15,000th of an inch in 

 diameter. 



(2) The other peculiarity of the Cmiflonidce is the possession of 

 an appendage to the meta-tarsi of the two hind legs, consisting of 

 two parallel rows of fine movable spines. These are situated on 

 a ridge on the upper side of the joint nearest to the abdomen, 

 commencing near the articulation with the tibia, and terminating 

 at a strong spur near the tarsus. Those of the upper row are bent 

 and tapering, — those of the lower stronger, closer, and nearly 

 straight. This instrument is called the calami sti'iim, or curling- 

 iron, and is that which contributes to the web its singular and 

 characteristic features. A drawing of it will be found on PI. 12, 

 Figs. 9 and 10. 



A lens of tolerably high power reveals four kinds of thread in 

 a Ciniflo's web. First, we observe a number of fine lines, con- 

 necting various objects around the spider's retreat, and inter- 

 secting one another in an irregular manner. To these are 

 attached flocks of filaments of a pale-blue tint, arranged both 

 longitudinally and transversely. One such flock consists of two 



