214 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



Meta's 

 Counter- 

 poise. 



FIG. 203. Meta merianse, with a counter- 

 poised snare. (After Parona.) 



found lifted above the ground 

 inally been in the same po 

 been raised by the elasticity 

 the wind, the motion of the 

 Another observation has 

 aly, and recently communi 

 ity in the Habits 

 he observed in a 

 of Meta merianse, 

 ficial gallery exca 

 customary with nets woven 

 of lateral lines, which were 

 vault, and were prolonged 

 was about sixteen inches 

 posed to the sweep of the 

 outer margin to the ground 

 seven centimetres) in length, 

 fragment of soil identical 

 large as a seed of Indian 

 soil was compact and heavy, 

 poise, holding the web fully 



, poise, which may be 

 a dry leaf, a little 

 piece of wood or oth- 

 er like material, but 

 commonly is a small 

 pebble or gravel from the 

 path. In one such case, 

 when he had taken away 

 the counterpoise, he saw 

 the spider descend by the ver- 

 tical thread to ascertain what 

 had happened, and, having ar- 

 rived at the ground, she fastened 

 the line to another pebble. 



It will be observed in this case 

 that the pebble to which the thread 

 was fastened lay upon the ground, 

 and this fact itself compels me to 

 doubt Professor Pavesi's conclusion. I 

 cannot .resist the thought that in this, 

 as in other cases where the pebble was 

 and acting as a counterpoise, it had orig- 

 sition upon the garden path, and had 

 of the thread, the mechanical action of 

 spider, and the swaying of the trees, 

 been made by Professor Parona of It- 

 cated in a paper entitled, "A Peculiar- 

 of Meta merianso." 1 In October, 1886, 

 villa at Baccione, on Lake Orta, a web 

 spun in the entrance of a short arti- 

 vated in solid earth. The orb, as is 

 in like positions, was stayed by a series 

 suspended upward against the arching 

 downward toward the walk. The snare 

 wide (forty centimetres), and was ex- 

 wind. The thread prolonged from the 

 was about twenty-seven inches (sixty- 

 At the end of this line was hung a 

 with that of the vault, and about as 

 corn (di grano turco). (Fig. 203.) The 

 and the pellet acted as a counter- 

 extended, so that it was sufficiently 



1 Particolarita nei Costumi della Meta merianae, Scop, del Prof. Corrado Parona. Annali 

 del Museo Civico di Stor. Nat. Di Geneva, Ser. 2, Vol. VII., 1889, pages 250-5, Tav. VI. 



