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THE TRIANGLE SPIDER: THE ORB SECTOR. 191 
ing; slowly rolls the insect in swathing thread until it assumes the ap- 
pearance of a round flossy ball. One female that I observed was a 
long time in thus preparing for her banquet. The spirals of 
her web had been broken in 
the capture, a single thread 
alone remaining. In another example 
observed the entire interradial system 
was obliterated. 
This, however, is not, as Wilder 
supposes, a peculiar habit. I have fre- 
quently noticed Epeiroids doing pre- 
cisely the same thing. The only differ- 
ence is that in the case of the latter a : . 
es Fic. 183. Outlines of a relaxed net after service. 
space consisting of two, three, or four 
radii would be cut out, leaving thus a large circle or wedge shaped gap 
in the snare. This gap corresponds almost precisely to the appearance of 
the Triangle spider’s net after she has cut out the entangled fly and com- 
pleted the enswathment preparatory to feeding. Of course, however, as 
Hyptiotes makes only a sector of a circle, she has nothing left of her snare 
after the insect is thus prepared; whereas spiders making circular webs 
have a goodly portion of their orbs intact and ready for service after one 
sextant is destroyed. Substantially, then, we may say that the same thing 
occurs with the snare of Hyptiotes and the snare of Epeira when the en- 
tangled insect is captured, cut out, and enswathed. 
I noticed what seemed to me a remarkable peculiarity in the manner 
of swathing and feeding upon a gnat taken by one of these spiders. Hyp- 
tiotes hung to her trapline by the two fore feet, which were stretched out 
quite at length from either side, as represented in Fig. 184. Her jaws and 
palpi appeared to me (although I could not quite make this out) to be 
supported upon the trapline. At least they overreached that line and 
grasped the partly enswathed insect, which lay over the line on the side 
opposite the spider’s body. The palps reaching upward from one side and 
the third feet reaching beneath from the other side revolved the insect, 
while the hind legs paid out the 
silk and manipulated the swathing 
as represented at Fig. 184. The atti- 
tude was an extremely odd one, and 
had the savor of that grotesqueness 
which seems to me always to mark 
the appearance and behavior of this 
aranead, 
When the fly was sufficiently secured it was carried back to the trap- 
line, whereupon Hyptiotes rolled herself over beneath her line in the ordi- 
nary posture, laid hold of the trapline by the two hind pairs of legs, and 
Feeding 
Habits. 
Fic. 184. The Triangle spider swathing a fly. 
