310 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



VI. 



The subject of nesting architecture could hardly be considered com- 

 plete without a glance at the curious habit of nest parasitism, as it may 

 (somewhat loosely) be termed. The facts in my possession are 



ar not numerous, but are enough to indicate that more, and more 

 asitism. 



interesting ones, may await future observers, fealtigrade spiders 



are very much in the habit of attaching the silken cell in which they live 

 to the nest of Orbweavers, and, indeed, I may say, of other tribes. One 

 may find a little Saltigrade snugly ensconced, as in Fig. 288, on the silken 

 dome of Epeira, with the mouth of the cell opening almost next door to 

 the exit of her host's house. It seems strange, at first thought, that the 

 two would pass to and fro without molesting and destroying one another ; 

 but they manage to do this. 



Again, I have often found underneath a bit of loose bark, or a flat 

 stone, the tubular nest of Epeira strix, surrounded on all sides and even 



overlaid by the cells of various Saltigrade species, 

 in some of which the mother would be found 

 dwelling with her young. Here, again, the wonder 

 is that the colonists dwelt together in unity. 



It is not an unusual thing to find the little 

 silken cell of Clubiona and various Drassids spun 

 PIG. 288. Parasitic nest of Sai- underneath some portion of curled leaf or leaves, 

 tigrade spider upon nest of w hich are used by the Insular or Shamrock spiders 

 for nests. Indeed, these ubiquitous Tubeweavers 

 feel free to attach their cells to any object, in almost any site, 

 Squatter w ithout the slightest regard to the equity of squatter sovereignty. 

 , Observations of this kind are so frequent that I have fancied that 

 during the hours of rest within the domicile the predatory nature 

 of araneads may be in abeyance, and that there may be a mutual under- 

 standing a sort of modus vivendi that in such cases the ordinary canni- 

 balism of their kind is to be suspended. 



Vinson gives an interesting account of the manner in which the little 

 Linyphise of the African islands whose fauna he has described, take up 

 their dwellings upon the huge snares and extended foundation lines of 

 large Orbweavers, mostly of the genus Nephila. Here they remain quite 

 at home, and apparently undisturbed by their gigantic hostess, and sup- 

 port themselves by picking up the small insects ensnared in their neigh- 

 borhood, and which are too minute to satisfy the appetite of the proprietor 

 of the snare. 1 This appears to be quite a fixed habit among the smaller 

 species of Africa. A similar phenomenon I have often observed among 

 our American fauna, and shall allude to it in a following chapter (Vol. II.), 

 upon the Babyhood of Spiders. The little ones of a recently escaped 



1 Arane"ides des lies de la Reunion, etc., page xix. 



