42 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
which had been woven by the brood in their babyhood assemblage. Snares 
of the Labyrinth spider are often seen thus closely placed, and in point 
of fact the same may be said of almost all Orbweavers under 
Orbweav- favoring conditions. I have described an assemblage of Zillas 
Neigh- whose snares were as closely placed as those of Uloborus repub- 
borhoods. licanus, the foundation lines thereof being supported by the iron 
railing and columns upon the footway at the sluice where the 
waters of Loch Katrine pass down into Loch Achray, in the Trossachs 
Glen of Scotland. So also with the snares of our most common indig- 
enous Epeiras, which one may see at times so closely placed along the 
surface of a stable wall or other favoring site that the founda- 
Not So- tion lines thereof are interblended, on the one side and the other, 
Sine giving to the casual glance the appearance of a widely distrib- 
uted colony. Yet, in point of fact, all these are simply examples 
of the contiguous placing of snares by individuals known to have no 
particle of social habit, and which are as absolutely distinct as though 
miles apart. I am constrained to believe that there is no more evi- 
dence of a really social community, analogous to that established among 
ants, wasps, and other social Hymenoptera, in*the assemblages of U. re- 
publicanus described by M. Simon, than in the examples which I have 
thus cited. 
The assembling of the two sexes upon the outlying threads surrounding 
the orbicular snares has something more the appearance of friendliness. 
It would seem, indeed, that here we have an evidence that individuals are 
drawn together by some social tendency. Yet even in this fact one can 
see nothing absolutely conclusive of a really social habit; for it must be 
remembered that M. Simon notes that most of these individuals, thus found 
congregated upon the netted suburbs of the true snares, were males, a fact 
which is quite in accordance with the habits of that sex. I have elsewhere 
shown (Vol. II., page 21), that as many as three or four males have been 
observed by me hanging upon the outer precincts of the orb of an Argiope 
or of Epeira labyrinthea. I am inclined to think that the examples de- 
scribed by Simon may be thus explained; for although males of Orb- 
weavers are disposed to quarrel with each other at times, they do also 
exhibit a remarkable degree of good temper, or at least absence of pug- 
nacity, when thus waiting at the gates of their lady’s bower. In view of 
all these observations, which appear to carry the habits of araneads nearer 
to those of social insects than any yet published, I am compelled to say 
that further facts are required before we can pronounce the author’s con- 
clusions to be well established. It is much to be hoped that M. Simon 
may have the opportunity to reéxamine the facts which he has communi- 
cated, and thus add the unquestionable solution of this most interesting 
problem to the brilliant service which he has rendered in that branch of 
natural science of which he has made himself a master. 
