eS ey 
234 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
quantities among the large snares of Nephila swung between forest trees 
are sought by the birds who, in their too eager pursuit, strike upon the 
stout surrounding lines and are arrested. He had encountered these birds, 
particularly the beautiful Muscipeta Borbonica of Cuvier, entangled in 
these mammoth snares. 
Darwin speaks of the Brazilian forests as having every path barricaded 
with strong yellow webs of a species of Nephila similar to N. clavipes.? 
The late Prof. Orton uses precisely the same language of the spiders 
in the forests of the Amazon, and adds that some build nests in the trees 
and attack birds. Prof. Wilder found that the orb of the Nephila 
of our Southern Atlantic coast would easily sustain a light straw hat, 
whose weight is certainly greater than that of a young bird. My own 
experience with such webs in Texas is that they will sustain a weight 
quite equal to that, although I never made such a test. It is said by 
tourists that the woods of Southern California are barricaded in the same 
way as those of Brazil and the Amazon, by the webs of Orbweavers, so 
that it is often difficult to pass through them. 
Two well authenticated cases of birds taken by a native spider have 
come under my notice in the vicinity of Philadelphia. A farmer belong- 
ing to the Society of Friends, Mr. Joseph Lownes, resident in 
the vicinity of Morton, informed me that he once found a bird, 
one of the smallest of our indigenous species of Kingster, en- 
tangled in the snare of a spider, which I judged from the de- 
scription to be Argiope cophinaria. He watched for some time the movye- 
ments of the bird, and believing that the latter would be finally over- 
come he beneyolently released it from the web. 
Another case occurred on the grounds of the Philadelphia “ Rabbit 
Club,” near Fairmount Park, and was related to me by David J. De 
Haven, the custodian. He saw a large Argiope cophinaria (as it appeared 
evidently from his description) capture in her web a hummingbird. 
He watched the process of swathing the poor victim until it was com- 
pletely wrapped around, when he slew the spider and rescued the bird, 
too late, however, for it was quite dead. 
The above examples, which might be multiplied, show beyond ques- 
tion that the strength and mechanical advantages of an orbweb are suffi- 
cient to enable our large Orbweavers to capture small vertebrate animals. 
Whether or not they feed upon such captives one can only conjecture, 
particularly in the case of our native fauna. Certainly in the last case 
above cited the spider acted precisely as with all victims taken for food ; 
but then, on the other hand, she might have done this and then have 
cut the hummingbird out of her snare without feeding upon its blood. 
Argiope 
as a Bir 
Catcher. 
1 Araneides des Isles de la Réunion, page xxi. 
2 Voyages of Adventure and Beagle, Vol. III., page 41. 
’The Andes and Amazon, page 304. 
