RANDOM NOTES ON. NATURAL HISTORY. 



91 



developed in other villages in the neighbor- 

 hood of Toula. The breeding of canaries is 

 also largely- carried on in the government of 

 Kalouga. 



" In many villages of the Temnikoft' dis- 

 trict (government of Tamboff) pigeons are 

 bred as domestic animals and their skins 

 sold as peltries to the furriers and others, 

 mostly Jews, who visit the weekf^- bazaars 

 and fairs to make such purchases. This deal- 

 ing in pigeon skins is a decided innovation 

 of later times, and cruelly dispels the illusion 

 of travelers and writers as to this bird's 

 sanctity amongst the commonalty." 



The skinning of pigeons to sell their pelts 

 in commerce is something I do not under- 

 stand unless the}- are intended for export to 

 be used as hat trimmings. 



Yours trul}', Jas. M. Wade. 



Our Friends the Spiders. 



BY REV. FOREST F. EMMERSON. 



[From the proceeding-s of the Newport Natural His- 

 tory Society.] 



We come now to the true web-builders, 

 the spinners and weavers of nets. I shall 

 endeavor to describe three classes of webs : 



First. There is the regular geometric 

 web of the common garden spider, though 

 it is doubtful whether there is ever found a 

 true geometric web. In a geometric web, 

 truly such, the concentric circles would 

 meet. But this is not the fact in the com- 

 mon spider's web. Instead of meeting the 

 circles pass by each other as they come 

 around to the point of starting, and thus 

 form, not a geometric circle but a spiral. 

 In the construction of this so-called geo- 

 metric web, the guys and stays are first at- 

 tached to surrounding objects ; then the 

 radii are made, running from a common 

 centre to the circumference. The guys, 

 stays and radii are made of a firm, dry, 

 inelastic silk. When this preliminary frame- 

 work is done, the spider weaves on the con- 

 centric circles, attaching each circle to each 

 one of the radii by the direct application of 

 the spinners so as to make them adhere. 

 These circles, not only with this spider but 

 with all spiders, are made of an elastic silk, 

 covered with a viscid gum, which, after the 

 line passes into the air, gathers on the 

 thread in globules so numerous and so 

 minute that it is estimated that on a web 



sixteen inches in diameter there are 100,- 

 000 of them. 



Second. The eccentric web. The 

 Charleston spider is known in the scientific 

 books as Nephila 2Jlumipefi, meaning the 

 feather-footed golden fleece, so-called from 

 the fact that there are bunches of feathery 

 growth on the joints of its legs, while one 

 pair of spinners produces a silk of very fine 

 quality and of the color of gold. It was 

 discovered during the war on the islands in 

 Charleston harbor by an officer of our army 

 who is a naturalist. " It builds an eccentric 

 web. The focus of this web is near the top 

 where the spider takes position head down- 

 wards, waiting for prey. The radii, guys 

 and stays of this web are made of in- 

 elastic threads of silvery color, while 

 the circular lines are of elastic, viscid silk 

 of golden color. Though usually making 

 one thread of all the spinners, it is believed 

 that spiders may use one or all of the sj^in- 

 ners at will. But why the golden spinners 

 should produce silk ordinarily dry when 

 reeled from the body, and viscid when used 

 for the concentric circles of the web is not 

 as yet understood. It may be that the 

 same spinner sends out the line and at the 

 same time covers it with the viscid gum, or 

 one spinner produces a filament while 

 another covers it with the gum. At all 

 events with three pairs of spinners the 

 Charleston spider spins four kinds of silk ; 

 the golden dry, the golden viscid and elas- 

 tic, the silver dry, and the pale blue. 



As I have before intimated the circles of 

 the web are not concentric, or spiral, as in 

 the regular web of the common spider. 

 They do not pass completely round a com- 

 mon centre, but are cast over the upper 

 radii in loops and brought back upon them- 

 selves in an opposite direction, never pass- 

 ing a point above the focus. In this web 

 some of the circles (and this is a peculiarity 

 of this spider) as well as the radii, guys, 

 and stays, are made of the dry silk. 



Third. The triangular web. Professor 

 Wilder, of Cornell University, found a 

 spider a few years ago near Ithaca, N. Y., 

 which does not seem to have fallen under 

 the notice of observers elsewhere. He calls 

 it the "triangular" spider, from the fact 

 that it builds a web, not geometric or eccen- 

 tric, but triangular in shape, and this trian- 

 gular shape is proof of a purpose which 



