18 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
ant.! I reproduce a figure from the above work to show the likeness noted. 
(Fig. 1.) In sooth, one may go further up the grade of zoological life, even 
to the apex of the pyramid, and note that man himself in the act of 
combing his hair unconsciously adopts artificial implements which resemble 
the natural combs and brushes supplied in the tibial combing spur of ants, 
and the hairs, bristles, and tarsal scopule of spiders. The economic har- 
mony, here at least, certainly threads vast intervals of being. 
i; 
The tidiness of spiders is further shown by the fact that they are 
extremely loth to sully with excrement the boxes in which they are im- 
prisoned. I continually observe that, when emptying my collect- 
Tidy ing boxes in order to colonize spiders on my vines, the first act 
eee is to void excreta, which they often do with great freeness, in 
large white drops, showing that they have really done violence 
to nature by retaining the same rather than mar the little box in which 
they were confined. So, also, they are careful in this natural act to avoid 
fouling their webs. The abdomen is thrown so far outward that the voided 
matter never comes in contact with the web lines, 
It is interesting to observe an Orbweaver in the process of cleansing 
its web from material which has fallen upon it. I made a complete obser- 
vation of a female specimen of the Shamrock spider engaged at 
this work. Several leaves of an ampelopsis vine on which her 
snare was spun, and two bits of the stem thereof, one at least 
four inches long, had become entangled in the lower part of the orb, The 
spider had just commenced the work of clearing away this extraneous 
material when my observation began. 
She was hanging by a line which she had attached to the hub of her 
orb, and which dropped down upon the inside of the web, so that she 
faced the leaf that she was then about to remove. One hind foot reached 
upward beyond the abdomen and held to this line, which, of course, was 
also attached to the spinnerets. (Fig. 6.) During part of the operation the 
other hind foot was stretched backward, and clasped the line near the spin- 
ners, as though to give additional poise and security to her position. But 
throughout a large part of the entire operation of clearing away the debris 
she hung by one hind foot alone, and used the other one for the work of 
dragging out, revolving, and expelling the material. In this position, hang- 
ing thus opposite her point of endeavor, she reminded me of painters 
swinging upon their little seats by ropes fastened far above and engaged 
in painting the sides of a house; or of workmen let down from heights 
for the various purposes of their handicrafts. This position was never 
abandoned for the whole period of time, the spider being able to swing 
House- 
cleaning. 
1 Pogonomyrmex barbatus. Ibid., page 129 and pl. xvii., Fig. 80. 
