SOCIAL HABITS OF SPIDERS. 35 
on the one hand correspond generally with the several stages on the other. 
Third, on the whole, the mechanical skill of the Tunnelweavers gives 
a more finished product. Fourth, progression in both series is from an 
equally primitive habitat upward to the most complex and complete, thus 
making the two series entirely independent, and not the one a continuation 
of and development from the other. 
I am quite aware that this language is analogical and nothing more, 
as there is no information in my possession which permits us to think of 
the Tunnelweavers and their industrial habits as actually developed from 
the Lycosids (or the reverse) in any sense known to science. Nor is there 
evidence of improvement in the nesting skill of any single species, within 
which the character of the architecture is persistently unchanged. Nor is 
there proof of a gradation in the architecture of any species corresponding 
with the faunal position of the architect. My purpose is simply to point 
out the marked analogies which present themselves in the study of the 
architecture of the various species of the two suborders: For a grouping 
of facts which seem to extend this analogy, as to the essential factor of a 
tubular web, over the wider field of the entire order Aranex, the reader is 
referred to my Vol. I., Chapter XVIII. 
X. 
In a preceding volume of this work! I have considered with some de- 
tail the tendency of spiders to assemble in communities. The observations 
j of Darwin, Azara, and others on what they supposed to be the 
Social : : ; Z ; 
Spiders. 8'¢Sarious or social habits of adult spiders are there noticed, and 
the opinion expressed that the examples cited were accidental 
assemblages of individuals held together in close neighborhood by various 
favorable circumstances, but with individual metes and bounds more or less 
distinctly marked. Nevertheless, in view of the possibilities of Nature, such 
a conclusion was held with reservation. I there further show that, in the 
babyhood of numerous species, spiderlings quite invariably maintain assem- 
blages, and dwell together peacefully, or at least with few breaches 
of fraternity; a state of amity which is maintained until Nature 
ies. ~ prompts the individuals to a witler individual life, at which time 
the assemblages are broken up, and the natural solitary habit 
and ferocity of the order assert themselves. 
I have often pondered whether this strong habit, fixed upon the early 
life of spiders, might not have formed a basis for the development, in adult 
life, of some such companionship, fraternity, and unity as mark the social 
Hymenoptera, so well illustrated in ants and wasps. It does not at first 
thought seem strange that a habit so marked in babyhood should be car- 
ried forward and become permanent in adult character and life. Yet, so 
1 Vol. II, pages 230-241. 
