ee ee ee Te ee ee 
THE ARMATURE OF ORBWEBS: VISCID SPIRALS. 95 
retain perfectly their viscidity. They appeared to have thickened, and 
were of an amber color. At various angles or points of juncture between 
the radii and spirals, larger globules or masses of viscid matter had formed 
as though several beads had run together and settled there. I kept a 
snare of this Argiope until September, 1888, nearly six years, at which 
time the general form of the orb remained perfect, though of course all 
the viscidity had disappeared, and the web lines were covered with in- 
numerable motes of dust, vegetable fibre, ete. On the contrary, a snare 
of Epeira thaddeus kept under precisely the same conditions as above, had 
in three months almost wholly lost the adhesive quality of the spirals and 
searcely a trace of the characteristic beads could be observed. 
Dr. Vinson! while hunting in a forest of Réunion (Africa) became 
entangled in the huge snare of a Nephila. While detaching from his lips 
the sticky threads pasted upon them, which he found to be 
bitter, he made the reflection that at some future day, no doubt, 
a medicine would be made from such threads, and formed into 
pills would serve as a substitute for sulphate of quinine in cases of inter- 
mittent fever. Spider webs have been frequently used in that way, although 
the medical uses of that substance are commonly thought to be limited to 
that suggested by the redoubtable Bottom in Shakespeare’s play, viz., to 
stanch the flow of blood. The web which has been most commonly used 
in this country? for such purposes is that of a tubeweaver, Tegenaria 
medicinalis. A bolus of “Telea aranea,’ or spider web, used to be a not 
infrequent prescription in Philadelphia. Perhaps the somewhat revived 
interest in this odd remedy may be profitably directed toward the Orb- 
weayers’ snares as well. 
The gum of which the spiral beads are formed has a slightly acrid 
taste, and it probably is of an acid nature. An associate in the Philadel- 
phia Academy of Natural Sciences, Mr. Gavin W. Hart, said that 
on one occasion while hunting in the woods he was frequently 
arrested by the webs of a large Orbweaver. Wishing to avoid 
the unpleasant contact with the viscid material, he used his gun to strike 
down the web, pushing the barrel ahead of him as he passed among the 
trees. In doing this, of course, some of the threads adhered to the gun 
barrel. Three or four hours afterward he found that the barrel was quite 
gummy, and where the thread was thickest it had removed from the gun 
barrel the bluing, as it is called. Where the thread was thickest, the bluing 
was removed the most. Several friends, who accompanied Mr. Hart on this 
expedition, found that their guns were affected in the same way. 
Medicinal 
Property. 
The Bead 
Gum Acid 
1 Araneides des Isles Réunion, ete., page 22. 
2See Dr. Chapman’s “ Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics,” Philadelphia, 1825. 
