NEAR RELATIVES OF INSECTS. 243 



some other places where we think she ought not to be. A 

 favorite habit of hers is to spin irregular webs in the angle 

 from ceiling to side wall overnight. This has the entirely 

 innocent purpose of trapping flying insects; but you 

 object and rudely sweep them down next morning. 

 Another spider places her web on the grass horizontally; 

 another joins twigs of trees or bushes with a web placed 

 either horizontally or vertically. During midsummer, 

 in the early morning, these webs of the grass spiders may 

 be seen glistening with dew. 



Argyroneta aquatica spins a silken web on the stems 

 of submerged water plants, fills it with air, and lives in it; 

 the opening being below, the air cannot escape. This 

 seems to solve the old riddle — 



" Under water, over water, 

 Yet never touching water. ' ' 



The way in which she transports the air below water is in- 

 terestingly recorded by Kingsley. The spider comes to the 

 surface of the water, turns around, bringing the abdomen 

 out of the water, and spreading the spinnerets apart so as 

 to let the air in between them; then she closes the hind 

 legs tightly over the spinnerets, and goes below with the 

 drop of enclosed air glistening white against the water, backs 

 to the opening of her nest, and spreading the spinnerets, 

 lets go the air into the nest opening. 



The flying spiders spin a float which, beginning as a 

 tiny raft, soon becomes powerful enough to carry them 

 away up into the air, if the breeze is stiff, on a merry 

 sail in the late summer sunshine; or in the sunshiny 

 autumn days, you may have felt the delicate ropes of this 

 craft draw across your face, while the tiny aeronaut above 

 was probably wondering on what reef his ship's anchor had 

 caught. 



