112 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
which she remains until nightfall. She thus shuns the hymenopterous ene- 
mies who hunt in the sunshine, and is in position to capture the night 
flying insects, among which chiefly she finds her prey. So per- 
ale ia sistent is this habit that Strix will rarely leave her hiding place by 
ity eM" day even to take the insects that become entangled in the snare. 
When the night begins to fall she may be seen swinging in the air 
against the darkening sky, laying in the foundations of her net and spin- 
ning her orb. It is surprising how many of these creatures start into 
activity in sites where their presence is not suspected. The skipper of a 
yacht on the St. Lawrence River, during a fishing trip, complained to me 
that the spiders were a great nuisance to him; that he brushed away num- 
bers of cobwebs every day, but that in the morning he was sure to find the 
vessel again fringed and laced with their webs. He could never make out 
where they all came from, or how they got aboard the ship. 
I was able to solve the man’s perplexity. A few days before, while 
coming down the river in the passenger steamer about twilight, I had no- 
ticed my aranead friends dangling from various parts of the boat, engaged 
in their tentative efforts at web building. Thereupon I examined the under 
parts of the railing and the cornices of projecting parts of the deck, and 
discovered a large number of Orbweavers, principally Epeira strix, young 
and old, male and female, curled up against the woodwork or 
Spider domiciled in silken nests. I called our skipper’s attention to sim- 
Stowa- . ayo : nea Saba 8 
aaa ilar localities on his own boat, which were occupied in like man- 
ner, and his wonder at once ceased. He had innocently thought 
that clearing away the webs had disposed of the weavers. He never imag- 
ined what a colony of unbidden passengers or “stowaways” he was carry- 
ing, who kept to their dens by day, and at night, when the yacht was laid 
up, turned out, spun their webs, and were back to their retreats before the 
good sailor men were astir the next morning. 
This example illustrates and explains a mystery in spider manners that 
has puzzled many housekeepers, viz., “ Where do the cobwebs come from ?” 
The query should be, rather, “ Whither do their spinners go?” 
When the snare is spun the Orbweaver takes position at the hub with 
her head downward. The artists do, indeed, persist in putting her upon 
‘he the web with head upward, but facts are against them. The 
Position Qrbweaver never assumes that position except when she turns to 
o a run to her nest or to take prey, in which cases she may remain 
stationary for a few minutes, but will soon resume her inverted 
posture. As the nest or retreat of the Epeiroid is usually above the median 
horizontal line of the orb, one would think that the head upward position 
would be the safer one as affording an easier approach to her refuge in 
case of danger. But on the contrary the naturalness of the inverted 
posture appears from the fact that when the spider is within her tent, 
as she generally is except at night, the head is then turned downward 
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