344 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



to thicken that portion of her snare in which she hangs back downward. 

 This is a most natural action, resulting from several facts. First, as she 

 passes from her resting point to the various parts of her snare in which 

 insects are entangled, she spins out an anchorage for the dragline, by 

 which she is sure to connect herself to this roosting spot. 



Again, when she returns with her prey, she swings her abdomen around 

 several times, before finally settling for her banquet, and at each time she 

 ejects a similar jet of silk and unites the thickened spots by a little thread. 

 (See Fig. 59, page 61.) Still further, in her restless movements back 

 and forward over her web, around this central roost, she throws out sim- 

 ilar anchorages and lines. Thus, this spot and its vicinity in a little 

 while become much thicker than the surrounding portions of the snare. 



FIG. 335. Linyphia's snare among the morning glories. 



Here, now, we have the germ of the typical snare of the genus Liny- 

 phia. In point of fact, it consists, as I have already shown (Chap- 

 ter IX.), of a sheet like bit of spinningwork, whose fibres are 

 ?rom vei y O p erij or> as one might otherwise express it, of a netted 

 sheet of spinningwork, whose meshes are very close. Our origi- 

 Linyphia na ^ snare f irregularly crossed lines has thus advanced a step 

 toward a meshed sheet like snare. In many species of the genus 

 Linyphia the snare is simply a netted sheet, more or less horizontal, having 

 outgoing straight lines, which support it above and below. It thus very 



