290 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



points of the leaves, through which the connecting line passes to the snare. 

 The spider domiciles within the leafy cavern thus formed-. 



Again, the spider avails herself of small holes in wood or stone, open- 

 ings in fences, the interspaces between curled bark on the trunk of old 

 trees, or some like cavity, which she appropriates as a nesting place. 

 A slight lining will generally be found upon the concave surface. I have 

 noticed that in such cases the snare is sometimes diverted from its normal 

 shape in order to give a convenient approach thereto from the den. One 

 such example was found spun between a side of the Peace Fountain in 

 Fairmount Park (Philadelphia) and a stone wall adjoining. In order to 

 pitch her tent within a hole in the rock, the spider diverted one of the 

 radii from the plane of the orb and extended it backward to the hole. The 

 spirals which passed over this radius thus made an elbow, which was 

 nearly a right angle, and gave the orb an odd, broken appearance. The 

 radius, of course, served as a bridge line by which Strix passed from her 

 den to her snare. 



Another variation, or rather series of variations, was noted upon the 

 side of Brush Mountain at Bellwood, Pennsylvania. Several young pine 

 trees had been cut away and tossed from the mountain to a 

 _ e , bank of the Juniata River below. The foliage had withered and 



fallen from the boughs, whose branches stretched out dry and 

 bare, and among them a colony of young Furrow spiders had pitched their 

 tents and spread their snares. One specimen happened to spin her web 

 near the axil of several goodly sized branches, which were formed into a 

 natural shelter by the inverted position of the bough. The spider had 

 recognized this vantage, and made her nest at the point of juncture, or 

 rather took shelter there, for there was little artificial nesting beyond a 

 faint tissue spread over the bark at the point where she sat. 



A second specimen had lodged at .a point near the tip of a small 

 branch, whose delicate, dry twigs gave no sufficient shelter, and, besides, 

 were directed upward. Accordingly, a silken tube, funnel shaped, was spun 

 between the twigs, within which young Strix nested. (Fig. 264.) 



A third spider, lodged in a similar site, had made a silken sack for a tent, 

 whose mouth had apparently originally opened directly toward the snare. 

 But a Saltigrade spider had fastened a parasitic tubular nest upon one 

 side of this sack, and accordingly the mouth was found closed and the 

 door shifted to the opposite side, as though to avoid interference with a 

 troublesome neighbor. A fourth individual had woven a silken cover or 

 screen, behind which she lodged. A fifth had pitched her tent upon a stray 

 leaf, beneath which a similar cover, a small rectangular piece of silk canvas 

 (suggestive of the military bivouac or "dog tent"), was stretched by lines 

 attached to the sides and corners, and fastened to the leaf surfaces and 

 surroundings. Between this sheet and leaf the spider was ensconced, hav- 

 ing the usual bridge line connection with the orb. (Fig. 265.) 



