AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



In other cases, however, as in the angles of walls, porches, outhouses, 

 etc., the silken egg pad is itself enclosed in a tent of spinningwork more 

 or less open. (Fig. 60.) In some cases this tent is little more than a 

 series of lines drawn across the angle at a little distance from the cocoon, 



as at Fig. 61. Strix, Sclo- 

 petaria, and Domiciliorum 

 are all in the habit of weav- 

 ing around their cocoons 

 such a tent. 



A Domicile spider, which 

 I found in the act of com- 

 pleting her cocoon, was con- 

 tent with a scantier cover- 

 ing than this. Her egg sac 

 was an oval mass of yellow- 

 ish brown silk one and one- 

 fourth inch long by three- 



FIG. 63. Epeira cocoon protected by a tent of close spinningwork. f OUrths of an inch wide. It 



was fastened upon a twig of 



a pine tree. At one end short lines were thickly strung across from the 

 needle like leaves, making a sort of " fly " or awning. This 

 was repeated at the other end, thus about half covering the 

 cocoon. The mother spider hung to a few threads above (Fig. 



62) her egg nest, with shrunken abdomen, and so much exhausted as to 



be little inclined to move. This cocoon was made September 24th. 



For the most part the outer tent is of closer texture than those above 



described, being in fact an enclosing curtain of silken cloth, through which 

 the outline of the cocoon within may be traced. (Fig. 63.) 

 Great numbers of these tent enclosed 

 cocoons may be seen at the boat houses 



near the Inlet of Atlantic City and Cape May. 



They are made during the last days of May 



and to the middle or last of June, and again 



in the fall. 1 The cocoons measure seven-eighths 



of an inch long by six-eighths of an inch wide, 



and less. The enclosing tent measures 



Foreordi- ^ WQ an( j ^ WQ an( j a na j jj^gg J ng by 



nation in , ,, . ,,, . , .-, wj 



Nature one a three-eighths inch wide. Fre- 

 quently the tents are overlaid one upon another, or spun close 



to each other, as at Fig. 58. I have found three large cocoons thus 



in 



Sheeted 

 Tent. 



FIG. 64. Egg mass of Epeira, show- 

 ing the under sheet and the mass 

 of flossy padding. 



1 Of two specimens of Epeira sclopetaria kept by me, one cocooned May 22d ; the other 

 May 26th ; a third about the middle of June. An Epeira domiciliorum cocooned Septem- 

 ber 16th. 



