128 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



left at either end of this tube. Above the whole, and quite encompassing 

 it, was woven a large tent several times, the size of the first tube, and 

 composed of spinningwork whose threads were quite closely placed, but of 

 so thin tissue that one could see through it without any difficulty. A 

 large opening appeared at one end of this external tent, but whether it 

 was left of purpose for a door, or, more probably, was the result of acci- 

 dent, I could not determine. 



Among the Drassids which I have found in Colorado is a species of 



Gnaphosa, which I took under a stone on the summit of the Snowy Range. 



It was dwelling in a little tubular nest. This species, according 



to Emerton, 1 is found all over New England, from the White 



Mountains to New Haven. Professor Packard found a female 



with a cocoon of eggs on Gray's Peak, Colorado, over eleven thousand feet 



FIG. 146. Cocoon of Micaria aureata within an interior and exterior tent. 



high. It thus has a remarkably great geographical as well as vertical dis- 

 tribution. The spider lives under stones and leaves. The cocoon is white 

 and flat, with its diameter as great as, or greater than, the length of the 

 spider. Emerton says that the female stays near her cocoon, but makes 

 no nest. I would have expected her to make her cocoon within her cell. 

 Some of the Drassids, like the Agalenads, protect their cocoons by com- 

 pletely enclosing them in cases of mortar. Among these is a species sent 

 me for determination by Mr. F. M. Webster, assistant entomolo- 

 gist of the State of Illinois, through whose intelligent interest 

 p, the remarkable facts concerning this spider have thus been made 



known. Mr. Webster has found these mud cocoons throughout 

 the whole range of Illinois, a State of great longitudinal extent. Two 

 balls from Southern Illinois are larger than the others, and composed of 



1 New Eng. Drassidse, Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. VIII., page 13. 



