226 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



stretched above the middle of the table for five feet. Thence it spread 

 upward, in diverging threads, to the window curtain, on which many of 

 the wee adventurers hung. (Fig. 253.) I kept the bridge for several 

 days, during which time the roadway received many additional strings, 

 and some of the baby bridge builders spun delicate little cobwebs along 

 the edges and among the trusses of their bridge, and, separating them- 

 selves from their fellows, set up housekeeping for themselves. 



Another example shows that precisely the same habit exists among 



FIG. 253. Bridge of spinningwork laid by a brood of Epeiroid spiderlings. 



spiders widely separated in structure. A large specimen of Ctenus was 

 sent to me by Prof. S. M. Scudder, who had received it from a 



Young friend. The animal had come from Central America, and had 

 f iti 



, brought her cocoon with her. This was a large conical object 



nearly an inch in diameter, constructed like the ordinary Lyco- 

 sid cocoon. The mother with her egg bag was placed in a box, and after 

 a few days, tired of lugging her cradle, hung it to the side of the box in 

 a hammock of loosely meshed lines. It was not long before an immense 

 host of little Ctenids, several hundreds in number, issued from the cocoon, 

 crawled out of an opening in the cover of the box, and distributed them- 

 selves over a large study table in my room at the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences. 



