102 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



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and was doubtless a female. " September 7th. The web is of the ordinary 

 form, consisting of irregular concentric polygons, suspended from a strong 

 breastwork of thick thread which forms the base of a triangle, the other two 

 sides consisting of the two garden fences. A diary of the spider's move- 

 ments would be rather monotonous. Nearly all the time she would seem 

 to sit quietly in the centre of the web. One morning she was absent for 

 an hour or two, and I supposed she had fallen a victim to some of her 

 enemies, either the 'thick or thin billed birds that gladly eat them,' or a 

 solitary toad w r hich has lately appeared about the place. But the next time 

 I visited the web she was in the centre again. 



"The rain seemed to be her greatest enemy. After a violent shower which 

 took place a few mornings ago, about three or four o'clock, I found that 



the bit of zigzag lace had entirely disappeared. In the course of 



ep ^ r 1 . rmg the morning she began to repair it, and when I found her at 



za ~ the work she rapidly ran off to the extreme end of the breast- 



work. However, before two o'clock, she had entirely replaced her 

 bit of lace, though it was less straight and symmetrical than before. Since 

 then she seems hardly to have moved from her position. I had supposed 

 that the violence of the rain had swept the bit of lace away, but I 

 now think that the rain acts chemically upon it and dissolves it. This 

 morning it rained gently for a couple of hours before five o'clock. Directly 



after that hour I went to see the spider, and found that half of 

 -P - 6C ' the lace strip above the centre of the web, and also above the 



spider, had disappeared entirely at the top, and nearly disap- 

 peared close to the spider's abdomen, which is always uppermost. Below, 

 the parallels and zigzag were but little impaired. She also seemed uncom- 

 fortable from the w r et and was scraping her legs and body, somewhat as a 

 fly does, until at least one drop of water fell. There are no wasps about 

 the place, and if the sparrows had been inclined to eat the spider they 

 would have done it before now. She hangs too high for the toad, fights 

 between whom and spiders I think are oftener read of than seen. 



" Monday morning, September llth, 1876. The spider has replaced the 

 zigzag strip for the sixth time, four times after rains, and twice on morn- 

 ings when no rain had fallen over night. In the latter cases little cottonlike 

 tufts were left, which seemed to form her bed (shield). Possibly, the strip, 

 on these two occasions, had been destroyed by the dew, though it was by 

 no means heavy. Each renewal of the strip is more imperfect than its pred- 

 ecessor. This morning it is very slight indeed, of inferior architecture, 

 and not three inches long. She always forms it very rapidly, not by 

 drawing out single threads, as in making the web, but by producing little 



bands, one-sixteenth of an inch wide. The difference between the 



threads and the bands is similar to that between the 'roping' 



and the yarn turned out by the old fashioned hand cotton spin- 

 ning wheel in use fifty odd years ago. The ' roping,' it will be remembered, 



