354 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



Thus we see that it is possible to trace a close resemblance and apparent 

 relation between the spinningwork of the Tubeweavers as represented by 

 Agalena and the principal genera of the great tribe of Lineweavers. 



Let us start again, but from another standpoint, in the tribe of the 

 Tubitelarise. The Clubionidse represent a very important and interesting 

 group, many of whose genera are characterized, as we have learned, by 

 the special spinning organs known as the cribellum and calamistrum. 

 Let us take, for example, the genus Dictyna, a species which I have here- 

 tofore described as the Wall loving Dictyna (D. philoteichus). It is very 

 common in the city and suburbs of Philadelphia. Its interesting snare is 

 spun everywhere upon fences and walls, in the angles of outbuildings and 

 upon leaves of vines and various plants. The central point is a little tube 

 woven against the site in which the snare is pitched. From this outgoing 

 lines proceed, diverging as they go, somewhat after the manner of the radii 

 in an Orb weaver's web. Between these lines is spun a flocculent thread, 

 consisting of minute filaments which have been teased by the calamistrum. 

 This curled thread is laid in between the radii quite after the fashion of 

 the zigzag ribbon characteristic of the orb of Argiope. That is to say, it 

 crosses diagonally from one diverging line to another, as repre- 



Dictyna's sente d in the Fig. 344. It is the habit of Dictyna to overlay 



Orb like 



w , one snare with another until the strata of spinningwork, if I 



may so call them, are laid several deep. I have often observed 

 them upon the walls and fences in Philadelphia thus spun out from the 

 central tube in all directions, until they present so strikingly the appear- 

 ance of a lace collar that the most casual observer at once notes the resem- 

 blance. I think one cannot fail to see in the form of this snare a sugges- 

 tion of the round web of the Orbweaver, with its radiating lines diverging 

 from the centre. 



From this peculiar snare of a representative genus of the Tubeweavers 

 we may be easily led, by the analogy of spinningwork, to a family that 

 confessedly lies on the very margin of the Orbweaving genera, 

 , e . namely the Uloborinse. In the genus Hyptiotes the Triangle spi- 

 der has a snare consisting of four diverging lines, or a single 

 sector of an Orbweaver's web. Now, we are compelled to observe that the 

 threads by which these diverging lines are united is precisely of the char- 

 acter of that used by Dictyna in uniting her diverging lines, and this 

 thread is spun out by precisely the same kind of spinning organs the cri- 

 bellum and the calamistrum. We have thus established a striking relation 

 on this side of the circuit between the Tubeweavers and the Orbweavers, 

 as on the other side we showed a relation between the Tubeweavers and 

 the Lineweavers. 



The progress of these analogies may be further traced. Hyptiotes 

 shows but a single sector of a circle, whose radiating lines are united by 

 the teased thread characteristic of the tubemaking Ciniflonidae ; but we 



