No. 2.] MENTAL POWERS OF SPIDERS. 



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after much buffeting about, when they probably lay still from 

 sheer confusion. 



Thinking that less active spiders would be more likely to 

 develop a habit of keeping quiet as a means of escaping 

 danger, we next tried some experiments with the Epeiridse. A 

 pretty little female of E. bombycmaria was softly touched as 

 she hung in the web ; she dropped two feet and then swung to 

 a neighboring branch, where she crouched motionless for three 

 minutes. Being again gently touched, she fell to the ground, 

 with her legs outstretched, and then quickly drawing them 

 in, remained clinging in a very inconspicuous heap to a blade 

 of grass. Here she stayed motionless for one hour, when she 

 was placed in a bottle, carried into the house, and, still keeping 

 perfectly quiet, was shaken out upon a table. After two min- 

 utes she was pushed about with the end of a glass rod, and 

 then her legs were lifted one by one with a needle. She seemed 

 so lifeless that we began to wonder if we had been watching a 

 dead spider, after all. We finally touched her with the point of 

 a needle ; but at the first suggestion of a prick she ran rapidly 

 away. She was knocked over as she ran, and remained motion- 

 less just as she fell, resting on the cephalothorax, with all the 

 legs drawn closely in, excepting one, which was slightly ex- 

 tended. She did not look like a live spider, nor yet like a dead 

 one, nor like anything else, excepting, perhaps, a bit of bark or 

 a small lump of dirt. She lay thus, without a perceptible 

 quiver, for more than two hours and a half, and then suddenly 

 ran away. She was reduced to quiet several times after this, 

 but was less patient, and endured no more handling. She did 

 not usually lie still just as she fell, but deliberately gathered up 

 her legs in such a way that they were undistinguishable from 

 each other and from her body. 



Shortly after this, while walking in the woods at dusk, we 

 caught a large female of E. infitniata. She was put into a 

 tumbler, and left until the following morning, when one of us, 

 upon going to look at her, exclaimed that she was dead. Her 

 legs were drawn up and bent, and she looked stiff and dry. 

 She was handed from one to another of those present. Her 

 demise was duly regretted, and her wonderful protective color- 

 ing was remarked upon. She was then put back into the 

 tumbler. An hour later, much to our astonishment, we found 



