Wilder.] 202 



spider and the kind of silk were entirely new* as was also the idea of 

 reeling silk directly from it or any other insect. 



At this time too, a friend f to whom the whole history of the matter 

 was known, expressed his confident belief that this new silken product 

 could be made of some practical utility, especially in view of the an- 

 ticipated scarcity of the ordinary silk ; and it is with his advice and 

 assistance that the experiments and investigations recounted below 

 have been made as far as our limited time and means have allowed. 



On the 30th of August, 1865, 1 obtained from Long Island some liv- 

 ing specimens, chiefly females, and have succeeded in bringing a few of 

 them to the North. 



I find no mention of this spider in the works of Hentz or any other 

 American entomologist, which may be the result of its being very cir- 

 cumscribed in its locality to a small and unimportant island ; but in "Die 

 Arachniden," by C. L. Koch, Vol. 6., is a figure of a mutilated female 

 specimen, the only one ever collected, and said to have been found in 

 Louisiana, which was preserved in the Museum of J. Sturm at Nu- 

 remberg. 



The description and figure of this specimen are so unsatisfactory 

 that I am really in doubt as to its identity with the spider under con- 

 sideration, but will provisionally regard the latter as the Nephila 

 plumipes, hoping at some time to settle the point by an actual com- 

 parison with the unique specimen described by Koch. 



I append here a description and figure of the spider drawn from 

 living individuals. 



Nephila plumipes Koch. 



A large and very elegant species, resembling most of its congeners 

 in the general form of the body, and like N. clavipes and N.fasci- 

 culata possessing peculiar collections of stiff hairs upon the legs, but 

 differinfT from them in that these hairs are more closely set together, 

 so as to justify the German term "Haarbiirste" (Hair brushes). 



The cephalothorax is black above, but covered, except in spots, 

 with silver-colored hairs. The abdomen is olive-brown variously 

 marked with yellow and white spots and stripes. On the 1st, 2d, and 

 3d pairs of legs are one or two brushes of stiff black hairs, pointing 

 forward away from the body. The length of the body is fi-om 1 to 

 1.10 and the spread of the legs 2.75 in a lateral, and 3.75 inches in a 

 longitudinal direction. 



The above applies only to the female, which will now be more 

 minutely described ; the male is very small and diflferently marked. 



* Prof. Wyman has sinco found among his alcoholic specimens of insects col- 

 lected in the South, one female individual of this species, but is not certain of the 

 precise locality in which it was obtained. 



t Dr. William Nichols of Boston. 



