214 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
















FLOWERING OF THE “GERMAN Ivy.”—In the March m 
NATURALIST is a communication on ‘German Ivy,” and its “f 
under peculiar circumstances.” The description given by Profe 
is certainly very interesting and remarkable. Allow me to stad} 
this plant is taken in the spring oe placed in the ground without a 
then transplanted to a pot in the fall and cut down close to the 
— after the appearance of new m flower buds, and flow: 
fo I send with this specimens of this plant which has been tr 
in Pa way, and so successful has it been, that efforts to prevent t 
from blooming have been unavailing, so vigorously 2 it flower. Is 
an explanation possible why this plant and others of different | 
should blossom so profusely after such severe pruning? Jaa of 
TLE, JR. 
A VARIETY OF THE COMMON AGRIMONY.—A variety of the ¢ 
agrimony SPAART Eupatoria) is PEET found in this 
aving nine leaflets instead of seven, which is the usual number. 
other respects it appears to be ideti with ba ordinary form, 
that it is, ERR a little taller, and apru in rather more § 
localities. — T. MARTIN TRIPPE, Orange Co., Ne Y. : 

ZOÖLOGY. 
How SPIDERS BEGIN THEIR Wess.— Early in the spring of I 
arrangements were making for photographing a live male of the 1 
plumipes (the so-called ‘Silk Spider of South Carolina”), the spi 
having several times traversed the circle of wire on W ich it ¥ 
denly stopped, took a firm position at the top of the frame and 
a blunt, rounded extremity, which advanced through t 
quickly for a few inches, but afterward more slowly and stea 
with an upward tendency, but always in the direction 0 
When it had reached the length of five or six feet, I allowed it pe 
th 
attached the end of the line, turned about and began to put 
now broke it off near the wire, and, believing that there wasa 
air toward the skylight, I blew gently upon the spider fom 
directions, and found that it always pointed her abdomen in the | 
in which I blew, and that the sna was emi a in the e 
So that while it seemed to have the power of projecting 
short distance, yet it always peren itself of ae revere pe do 
This single instance by no means proves that a all spiders 
employ this method of bridging over spaces, and it may - 
