DEATH AND ITS DISGUISES. 



433 



English 

 Orb- 

 weavers. 



Others, the greater part indeed, were covered within a thick tubular or 

 rather arched screen (Fig. 365), open at both ends, which was bent in the 

 angles of the woodwork, or were sheltered beneath an irregular rectangular 

 silken patch (Fig. 366) stretched across a corner. Many others were bur- 

 rowed behind cocoons quite covered up by their thick, flossy fibre, in 

 which condition they had undoubtedly spent the winter. I have found 

 examples of Epeira strix blanketed in precisely the same way during the 

 winter months. I asked some of the young boatmen what the spiders did 

 in the wintertime. "They crawl into their bags," one answered, referring 

 to the screens and tubes above described (Figs. 365 and 366), "and stay 

 there. They came out about a month ago (the last of April), and then 

 shed. A couple of weeks ago the sides of the houses were all covered 

 with these sheds." " Shed," it should be understood, is vernacular for 

 " moulted " or " moult." 



English spiders have like habits. Epeira apoclisa frequents gorse, heath, 

 and rank herbage growing near marshes, lakes, pools, and brooks, or 

 other damp situations, among which it constructs a dome shaped 

 cell of white silk of compact texture. In this cell, after distrib- 

 uting upon its exterior surface the withered leaves of plants, 

 and enclosing its entrance with a tissue of silk, the spider passes 

 the winter in a state of tor- 

 pidity. 1 It is said that Apo- 

 clisa possesses the power of 

 closing the door of her nest 

 against intruders by seizing 

 the sides with its claws. The 

 eggs are placed in her cell, en- 

 closed in several slight, round- 

 ish, yellow cocoons about half 

 an inch in diameter. Simi- 

 lar nests attributed to Epeira 

 quadrata, although Staveley 2 

 thinks the deserted nests of 

 Epeira apoclisa are alluded to, 

 are selected by the dormouse, 

 according to Rennie, as a ready 

 made roof for its nest of dried grass. That the old spider dens are not 

 accidentally chosen by the mouse appeared from the fact that out of 

 about a dozen mouse nests of this sort found during winter in a copse 

 in Kent, England, every second or third one was furnished with such a 

 roof. 3 



FIG. 366. A winter bivouac tent of Epeira sclopetaria. 



1 Blackwall, Spiders Gt. Br. & Ir., page 321. 

 3 Rennie, " Insect Architecture," page 109. 



2 British Spiders, page 230. 



