40 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SI'INNINGWORK. 



from that of Anelosimus socialis simply in extent. The habit of young 

 spiders, immediately after their exit from the cocoon, is to surround them- 

 selves on all sides with a close tissue of just such spinningwork as M. 

 Simon describes. One of the most remarkable of these I have described 

 (Vol. II., page 227, Fig. 254), where the enclosing tent of the young brood 

 covered a large working table and extended upwards to the ceiling of the 

 room. I have seen some colonies covering a space eight or ten feet in 

 length and four or five in width. I have also observed a large space of 

 a vine or bush enclosed in a similar manner by broods of Epeira, one of 

 which is described in this volume, in the chapter on Moulting Habits. 



Now, it is only required that the broods of several cocoons, left by 



mothers in the same neighborhood, should issue at one time, to 



Tenting produce the results figured by the French savant. These colo- 



Com- n j eg would certainly, as I can affirm from observation, unite 



their spinningwork, while retaining a degree of separation, and 



lings so enclose an immense space, overweaving leaves, and uniting 



the interspaces by a soft but compact fibre, precisely of the sort 



made by the Venezuela species. 



I am at a loss to determine from Simon's language whether he is de- 

 scribing the work of several broods of spiderlings or the work of adult 

 females. It is true that he speaks of the cocoon, and indeed figures it 

 (Fig. 36) ; but he may have done this from an empty cocoon found in 

 the midst of the colonial tent after abandonment by its inmates, as I have 

 many times found cocoons. Until this point is settled, I feel constrained 

 to say that there is nothing peculiar in this habit of this species, and 

 nothing to justify one in regarding it as more sociable than other Ther- 

 idioid spiders. 



One fact, indeed, looks in the opposite direction ; namely, that the 

 spiders when meeting touch one another after the fashion of ants, who 

 are well known to cross their antennae for purposes of recognition. I have 

 frequently observed a habit similar to this in the case of young spiders 

 while in the period of assemblage immediately after issuing. They do 

 touch each other with their fore paws, and even with their palps ; though 

 I should say that the manner is not strictly homologous with that of the 

 ants, but it is only in a general way analogous thereto. If, however, the 

 spiders described by M. Simon as engaged in constructing the tented 

 domicile which he figures, were adult females, and if they have so far 

 sunken their voracious and pugnacious habits as to recognize each other 

 by palpal touch, and thereupon pass by without a hostile attempt, we 

 have, indeed, a most remarkable fact, and one which relates the habits of 

 spiders to those of the highest of the insects, in one of their most in- 

 teresting features. The uses of a spider's palps are indeed various ; but, 

 as far as I know, the above observation stands alone in attributing to 

 those organs such a function. 



