40 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR aeitenoEe 
from that of Anelosimus socialis simply in extent. The habit of young 
spiders, immediately after their exit from the cocoon, is to surround them- 
selves on all sides with a close tissue of just such spinningwork as M. 
Simon describes. One of the most remarkable of these I have described 
(Vol. II., page 227, Fig. 254), where the enclosing tent of the young brood 
covered a large working table and extended upwards to the ceiling of the 
room. I have seen some colonies covering a space eight or ten feet in 
length and four or five in width. I have also observed a large space of 
a vine or bush enclosed in a similar manner by broods of Epeira, one of 
which is described in this volume, in the chapter on Moulting Habits. 
Now, it is only required that the broods of several cocoons, left by 
mothers in the same neighborhood, should issue at one time, to 
Tenting produce the results figured by the French savant. These colo- 
Com- nies would certainly, as I can affirm from observation, unite 
caries their spinningwork, while retaining a degree of separation, and 
lings. so enclose an immense space, overweaving leaves, and uniting 
the interspaces by a soft but, compact fibre, precisely of the sort 
made by the Venezuela species. 
I am at a loss to determine from Simon’s language whether he is de- 
scribing the work of several broods of spiderlings or the work of adult 
females. It is true that he speaks of the cocoon, and indeed figures it 
(Fig. 86); but he may have done this from an empty cocoon found in 
the midst of the colonial tent after abandonment by its inmates, as I have 
many times found cocoons. Until this point is settled, I feel constrained 
to say that there is nothing peculiar in this habit of this species, and 
nothing to justify one in regarding it as more sociable than other 'Ther- 
idioid spiders. 
One fact, indeed, looks in the opposite direction; namely, that the 
spiders’ when meeting touch one another after the fashion of ants, who 
are well known to cross their antennse for purposes of recognition. I have 
frequently observed a habit similar to this in the case of young spiders 
while in the period of assemblage immediately after issuing. They do 
touch each other with their fore paws, and even with their palps; though 
I should say that the manner is not strictly homologous with that of the 
ants, but it is only in a general way analogous thereto. If, however, the 
spiders described by M. Simon as engaged in constructing the tented 
domicile which he figures, were adult females, and if they have so far 
sunken their voracious and pugnacious habits as to recognize each other 
by palpal touch, and thereupon pass by without a hostile attempt, we 
have, indeed, a most remarkable fact, and one which relates the habits of 
spiders to those of the highest of the insects, in one of their most in- 
teresting features. The uses of a spider’s palps are indeed various; but, 
as far as I know, the above observation stands alone in attributing to 
those organs such a function. 
