ARGIOPE AND HER RIBBONED ORB. 103 



was formed of the cotton rolled together and twisted a little, the rolls being 

 too short to be spun into yarn without the intermediate roping process. 

 The use of the strip I cannot see. Not a fly has been caught in it, while 

 the web catches a few flies and many mosquitoes and gnats, which two latter 

 insects I do not perceive that the spider notices. Yesterday I saw a fly 

 struggling in a part of the web, distant from the centre ; the spider did not 

 move towards it while I was looking, but a few minutes afterward I found 

 her devouring it. She replaces her strips, on an average, in less than five 

 minutes. 



"Wednesday, September 13th. Something, apparently a cat, jumped 

 through the lower half of the spider's web yesterday morning, of course 

 carrying away the meshes and part of the zigzag strip, deranging the rest. 

 The spider did nothing all day, seeming to be discouraged ; and I found 

 her still sitting on the remains of her rumpled bed 1 (shield) early this 

 morning. But during my absence for some fifteen minutes she had removed 

 these rumpled remains as rubbish, and had begun to repair damages. She 

 was replacing her bed by bringing forth congeries of very minute fibres, 

 and kicking 2 them into place with her foot. This work was very soon fin- 

 ished. There is nothing architectural, so to speak, about the bed ; it is a 

 mere tuft. 



"She then let herself down about two inches and a half below the bed, 



fixing a thread to the web as she proceeded, and then turning about began 



to crawl up again, arranging behind her as she went her zigzag 



Stri strip- This is not confined, as I first thought, between parallel 

 threads (radii), but is attached on one side to the thread made 

 in descending, and on the other side, to the general mesh. 3 The strip is 

 irregular in width, just as all the late ones have been, and when the spider 

 had brought it up and attached it to the lower part of her bed she did 

 not, as heretofore, continue its reconstruction above the bed, but, turning 

 round, settled herself quietly into her old position, head downwards, possi- 

 bly somewhat exhausted by the late demands on her spinning resources. 

 I omitted to say that since five o'clock yesterday afternoon she has replaced 

 a portion of the web carried away by the cat. The long strong thread from 

 which the whole depends, and which was broken by the cat, she has not 

 replaced, but only mended, and it is now a little out of line. 



" Thursday, 14th. A cat again jumped through the web last night, dam- 

 aging it badly, breaking the main beam, which throws the web quite off 

 its balance. I found the spider, early this morning, prospecting among 



1 1 have several times seen the crumpled remnants of an old shield left, like a rude boss, 

 on the outside of a new one, which had been woven underneath it. This is probably the 

 " rumpled bed " alluded to. 



2 The rapid motion of the hind leg to and from the spinnerets in seizing and pulling out 

 the thread, has certainly the appearance of " kicking." 



8 This is sometimes, but not always, the case. 



