1 al 
102 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
may even touch them at that time without responsive signs of life. Of 
course they are then at the mercy of their enemies, to whom, in point of 
fact, they do fall an easy prey in great numbers. 
One would naturally expect from what has elsewhere! been written 
of protective habits, that Nature, intent upon the preseryation of the 
species, would provide some recourse against this peril. Accordingly we 
find that, upon the approach of the moulting period, many spiders pre- 
pare for the emergency; some creep away into crevices of rocks, crannies 
of walls and fallen wood, hollows of trees and stumps, underneath loose 
bark, stones, and like sheltered positions. Many species overlap and join 
together the edges of leaves, and moult within the tent thus formed ; some 
preémpt the cocoons or lodges of other spiders, and some appropriate the 
nests of sundry insects. 
The Attoids moult within the silken cells which are the characteristic 
dwellings of the family and make no other provision therefor. Curiously, 
they have a fancy for cells other than their own, and for old 
Protect- rather than new. They freely avail themselves of strange cells, 
“ee BoP and the ones which appear most to please them are the abandoned 
nests within which the females have laid their eggs, after the 
young have quitted them. Hence, one will sometimes find the shed skin 
of one or even two vagabond males inside such sites. 
Tubeweayvers seek the funneled part of their snare and moult beneath 
the outspread curtain, as do also the Linyphie. Lycosids moult within 
their burrows, which they previously close, showing thus the same sense 
of need that leads them to cover their nests in winter and the cocooning 
season. 
Orbweavers do not have the same degree of secretiveness at this period ; 
at least many of them are found moulting upon their snares, as shown in 
the various accompanying figures, with no special provision for conceal- 
ment or protection. Often they do not even get behind their webs or seek 
the shelter of adjacent foliage. The Lineweavers also moult upon their 
webs, but then their position underneath and within their maze of crossed 
lines, as with Theridioids and with Pholeus, would in itself seem to be a 
good protection. As a general but not invariable rule it may be said that 
spiders having a fixed abode, as all the sedentary groups of Lycosids that 
live in burrows, many Attoids, etc., cast their skins on or in their snare or 
lodge. But those species which have no fixed dwelling seek divers shelters 
for moulting. 
All the burrowing spiders observed by Mrs. Treat closed their dwellings 
just before they moulted, and before making their cocoons. When this 
work was over they cut the threads and threw the covers back, sometimes 
entirely severing them. At other times a sort of hinge was left on one 
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1 Vol. II, page 407. 
