202 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
Theridiosoma, as represented at Fig. 194, or again, as shown at Fig. 195, 
we observe that if the fore feet, 1, 2 (Fig. 194) are released suddenly from 
the trapline, T, the whole body shoots backward, although still toward the 
snare, as with Hyptiotes. This was the ac- 
tion which I observed. 
The determination was finally accomplished 
by first carefully sketching the arrangement 
of the basket stretched between the feet (2, 
3, 8, 4, 4, Fig. 195). With this chart in one 
hand, and in the other hand a magnifying 
glass focused upon the feet, I watched until 
favored with several successive and unsuc- 
cessful springings of the net. As the spider 
only leaves her seat when she thinks that an 
insect is well entangled, and again bows her 
net by pulling on the trapline if no prey be 
Fk La ensnared, the above conditions enabled me to 
insect is taken. S, spider; In, insect. Compare my chart of the basket, with the 
basket itself as seen under the glass. I found 
that the outlines on the paper and the lines under the animal’s feet ex- 
actly corresponded. There had therefore been no change in the relative 
positions of the hind feet, mandibles, and palps, and perhaps also of the 
second pair (2) of feet. There had been an actual (not seeming) motion 
of the body with and in the direction of the snare, and this had been 
caused by releasing the first pair of legs (1) from the trapline. The only 
actual motion, therefore, was the slight hitch forward produced by the 
elasticity of the axes of the rays and other parts of 
the snare behind the aranead. 
The importance of this determination seems greater 
from the fact that I had at first concluded that the 
Ray spider actually operated her snare by sections. 
That is, instead of springing the whole orb at once, 
as above described, she simply sprung the ray struck 
by an insect, by unclasping the foot holding the axis 
of that ray. Thus, ray ii, Fig. 195, would be sprung 
by releasing the axis of ii from the third foot, No. 
3. This is probably not done when the snare is in 
complete form (as at Figs. 187, 189, 190), but I be- 
. é , Fic. 197. Ray spider’s snare 
lieve that it is done when the web has been par- after usage in taking prey. 
The spider is at the centre, 
tially destroyed, and is reduced to two rays or seC-  j,cjaing the rays “locked.” 
tors, as at Fig. 197. 
The fragmentary condition of the Ray spider’s web after contact with 
insects has already been referred to, The snare is gradually obliterated, a 
conclusion to which the spider herself very curiously contributes. When 
