Miscellaneous. 71 



thread. By imitating the motion of a swaying leaf or limb, the 

 spider was caused to perceive the attachment and immediately ven- 

 tured upon the line. Once the thread fastened upon the observer's 

 face, and the animal was allowed to cross the line (4 or 5 feet) until 

 within a few inches of the face, when she took in the situation, in- 

 stantly cut the line and swung downward and backward over the 

 long arc, and, after a few oscillations, climbed up the line to the 

 point of departure. Her willingness to use the air-currents for 

 making transit-lines was thus quite as manifest as her inability. 

 The third spider exhibited a like behaviour. 



4. The third individual, a male, did not attempt to spin an orb in 

 the former site ; the wind was unfavourable, but there would not 

 have been much difficulty in carrying a cord around. He came out 

 of his rolled-leaf den at 7.20 p.m., and for more than an hour laboured 

 to secure a web foundation. He was located upon a dead end of a 

 bough of a tree with many branching twigs. As with the former 

 individual, so with this : many efforts were made to obtain founda- 

 tions by sending out threads from the spinnerets ; and to this end he 

 tried most of the numerous points of the twigs covering the territory 

 which he seemed to have chosen as his general range. One of these, 

 a little pendant which hung in the centre of the group, was taken 

 as the basis of a most interesting operation. The spider dropped 

 from the pendant by a line 3 or 4 inches long, grasped the line by 

 one of the second pair of feet, and rapidly formed a triangular basket 

 of threads by connecting the point of seizure with lines reaching to 

 the feet of the remaining second and the third and fourth pairs. In 

 this basket he hung head upwards, the body held at an angle of 

 about 45°, the two fore feet meanwhile stretched out and groping 

 in the air, as though feeling for the presence of obstructions, of 

 enemies, or of floating threads. At the same time he elevated his 

 spinnerets and emitted a line, which was drawn out at great 

 length by the air and secured no entanglement. The body of the 

 spider had a gentle lateral oscillation, which appeared to the observer 

 to result from a voluntary twisting of the central rope by the animal, 

 but may have been caused by the air ; the effect, in either case, was 

 to give the line a wider swing and much increase the chances of 

 entanglement. 



However, there was no entanglement, and the spider dropped 

 several inches furtlier down, and repeated exactly the process as 

 described above. This was repeated again and again ; and when the 

 observer allowed the line to attach to his person the spider at once 

 proceeded to satisfy himself of the fact, and then to venture a 

 crossing. In all these actions there was evidence of a habitual 

 mode of securing transit by bridge-lines. 



During the intervals of these attempts, and indeed preceding them, 

 the spider passed back and forth along all the branching twigs, 

 leaving behind him trailed threads or lines connecting the ends, 

 many of which seemed to be purely tentative. At last a central 

 point was taken, a sliort thread dropped therefrom aud attached to 



