THE FEATHERFOOT SPIDER, ULOBORUS PLUMIPES. 



175 



appeared to have cleared away and pushed back the old broken webs so 

 as to make space for new ones, and the fragments occupied the margin of 

 the orb space close up to the points at which the foundation lines were 

 attached to the adjacent foliage. (See Fig. 161.) On one of these webs I 

 counted thirty-six radii and twelve spirals, not including among the latter 

 the concentrics which fill up the central space. The hub measured a 

 quarter inch in diameter, and the distance between the concentrics was 

 one thirty-second of an inch. Beneath the orb there extended 

 a mass of retitelarian lines, somewhat after the manner of the 

 Orchard spider, but not so abundant. The central spirals grad- 

 ually opened as they approached the true spiral space, and were 

 separated by distances ranging from one-eighth to one-fourth inch. A 

 notched ribbon about an inch long was spun on each side of the hub, 

 gradually terminating in a point. The central spirals crossed the ribbon 

 at the points of its angular scallops. The hub was one-fourth inch wide. 

 Snares of Uloborus found upon the banks of Bride's Kun, at the out- 





let of Bride's Pond, near 

 spun in the cavities of old 

 and grasses near the banks 

 was checkered or meshed 

 zone of Epeiroids. The 

 seized -the points of the 

 centrally through the hori 

 one orb were twenty-two in 

 nine and forty. The spirals 

 margin of the notched zone, 



FIG. i62.*piece of the 



Niantic, Connecticut, were 

 stumps, or upon the ferns 



^ * ne stream - The nu ^ 

 somewhat like the notched 

 notched or central spirals 

 little ribbon that extended 

 zoiital orb. The spirals of 

 number, the radii thirty- 

 continued close up to the 

 without any interspace, and 



Ribbon 



,. 



the web was about four and a half inches in diameter. (See Fig. 160.) 

 A striking peculiarity of the orbs of this species is the ribbon decora- 

 tions which are quite characteristic, and unite the spinningwork of the 

 genus with that of such genera as Argiope and Acrosoma. Per- 

 na p S the most frequent form of decoration is a scalloped band 

 about one thirty-second inch in width, which crosses the central 

 part of the orb, being scarcely perceptible at the hub, and grad- 

 ually diminishing towards the circumference of the orb. Where the spirals 

 cross, this ribboned spinningwork is pulled into points, thus giving the 

 band the toothed or scalloped appearance represented at Fig. 162. The 

 distance between the spirals was from one-fourth to one-eighth of an inch; 

 the distance across the band from point to point about one thirty-second 

 of an inch. 



Another form of decoration shows simply the addition on one side of 

 the hub of a second ribbon, which makes an angle with the first. In this 

 snare the spider hung beneath the hub, with its fore and hind legs re- 

 spectively attached to the points where the ribbon joins the hub. 



The most remarkable decorations of this sort I found upon the orbs of 



