190 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
ascertain the exact location of the fly by pulling upon the radii. Having 
satisfactorily decided this, she runs along the loosened radius and some- 
_ times, when the prey is small or hopelessly entangled, contents 
= cunng herself by pulling it up by means of the lines about it, and car- 
e Prey. . ; 3 F 
ries it to her accustomed station, to be eaten at leisure. More 
frequently she moves along the trapline, and almost entirely destroys the 
triangular section which forms the web. This action is thus correctly de- 
scribed by Professor Wilder :— 
Before reaching the apex the spider cuts with her jaws the apex line, 
but as she maintains her hold in front of the cut by her first and second 
pairs of feet, and has a communication in the rear through the line which 
most spiders always attach to a point behind them, she does not fall, 
neither is the net loosened beyond a certain limit; it usually seems to 
recoil about an inch; this recoil tends to entangle the prey like 
the original snap of the net. The spider again advances, gathers 
the radii togeth \ #) er and cuts them all, still keeping the line 
drawn out be- |W 
hind; again the 
net recoils and 
collapses. Again 
she advances 
and cuts the 
radii 3 th e net y) Fic. 182. Condition of Hypti- 
. otes’ net when sprung upon a 
is now hardly fly. (After Wilder.) 
distinguishable as such, and is falling together 
about the devoted fly; the spider now spreads her 
legs, gathers the net between them and flings it like a 
blanket over her victim. Struggles are in vain; but “to make 
assurance doubly sure” the spider grasps the mass, transfers it to 
her third pair of legs, and with them turns it over and over as 
a ball, hanging the while by her front legs; and with the hinder 
pair, used alternately, draws out from the expanded spinnerets broad sheets 
of silk which, relatively to the power of the fly, are like steel bands upon 
a man. 
Having in this way reduced the prey to a rounded ball, in which its 
limbs are hardly distinguishable, the spider takes it.in her jaws and mounts 
to her place. A single fly of ordinary size seems to occupy a whole day 
in the eating. When finished, the remains are cast down as a pellet, so 
perfectly deprived of moisture that it is probable that this species, like 
Nephila and perhaps all Epeiride, sucks out the gum of its old net and 
reélaborates it for use in making a new one.! 
My observations of the feeding habits of Hyptiotes correspond with 
those of Professor Wilder. She is very deliberate in her mode of proceed- 
1 Op. cit., page 651, 
