86 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
a more favorable issue.! We are inclined to sigh with the disappointed 
enthusiast: “What a pity, and what a loss!” Termeyer’s line of inquiry 
differed from Bon’s, in that he took his silk principally from the living 
subject, while Bon wrought from cocoons. 
Termeyer’s attempt to reel silk was suggested by observing the manner 
in which the spider extruded its spinningwork when swathing a fly. His 
contrivance consisted of three parts: first, a body rest (Fig. 51), consisting 
of a piece of cork slightly hollowed in the centre,? and supported upon 
a pedestal; second, a foil consisting of a bit of tinned iron (Fig. 51, b), 
about an inch wide, having a curved notch in the bottom correspond- 
ing with the cavity in the cork, on either side of which were soldered 
two iron pins or wires (c, c) which were introduced into the cork. The 
spider was placed.upon the body rest, as shown at Fig. 53, so that the 
foil falling between the corselet and the abdomen kept the spider in posi- 
tion, and withheld the legs 
from interfering with the 
threads. 
When about to reel the 
silk the Abbe gave his cap- 
tive a fly, which was seized 
with the feet and jaws, 
and at the same time the 
spinnerets were opened by 
unconscious association of 
ideas, and threads thrown 
Sars sg fetesried eee) seers out as if to swathe the fly. 
e Termeyer’s apparatus for reeling si ‘om living spiders. Th s 
e end of this filament 
Fic. 51. Body rest and foil. Fic. 52. Reel. Fic. 53. Spider in 
attitude for yielding to the reel. was then attached to a 
small reel four and a half 
inches in diameter, with cylindrical arms of glass. (Fig. 52.) This was 
slowly turned and the silk wound off, as with the silk moth’s cocoon. 
Indeed, Termeyer wound apon the same reel a band of spider’s silk and 
a similar band of silk worm’s silk, of which he remarks that the compari- 
son shows evidently how much more brilliant and beautiful the first is 
than the second, so bright that it WRpeatS more like a polished metal or 
mirror than like silk. 
In more recent times the whole subject has been gone over by Professor 
Wilder, now of Cornell Pee New York. For several years, in various 
Fic. 51. Fic. 52. Fig. 53. 
* Raimondo Maria de Termeyer, Ricerche e Sperimenti Sulla Seta de Ragni, Milan. 
(Astor Library, New York.) We are indebted to Dr. Bert G. Wilder for a translation of 
Termeyer’s report of his experiments, which he published in Proc, Essex Institute, Salem, 
Mass., 1867. 
2 T have ventured here to insert this cavity, which is lacking in Termeyer’s sketch, as 
reproduced by Wilder. 
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