a ee 
STRENGTH OF WEBS AND POWER OF SPIDERS. Do 
The observers were unfortunately unable to await the issue of the mat- 
‘ter, and therefore caught the combatants in the bottle, partly filled with 
water. The fish swam languidly at the bottom of the vessel, and the 
spider stood sentinel on the surface, turning when the fish turned, 
and watching every motion. The bottle was set aside and visited 
after an interval of three hours. The spider was then found 
dead at the bottom of the jar, but the fish was alive and lived twenty-four 
hours afterward. The spider was three-fourths of an inch long and weighed 
fourteen grains; the fish was three and one-fourth inches long and weighed 
sixty-six grains. The spider was probably bruised by the catching. The 
spider referred to may have been an example of Lycosa lenta or L. fati- 
fera, or more probably Dolomedes tenebrosus, all of which grow to great size 
along streams of water. I have seen very large 
examples of D. tenebro sus along the rocks of 
the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River, and 
upon various streams in the vicinity of Philadelphia. 
One of the most remarkable records of the physical and me- 
chanical powers of spiders is made in Silliman’s Journal.} 
The account is authen ticated by the names and state- 
ments of a number of gentlemen resident in the vicinity 
of the occurrence, Bata via, New York. One evening Hon. 
David E. Evans found in his wine cellar a live striped 
snake, nine inches long, suspended by the tail in a spider’s web be- 
tween two shelves. The snake hung so that its head could not 
reach the shelf below it, by about an inch. The shelves were about 
two feet apart, and the lower one —.@ was just below the bottom of a cel- 
lar window, through which the rc.2. a snake probably passed into it. 
From the upper shelf there hung onan di, 2 Web in the shape of an inverted 
cone, eight or ten inches in diame a spider's. ter at the top, and concentrated to 
a focus about six or eight inches ‘°” from the under side of this shelf. 
From this focus there was a strong cord made of the multiplied threads of 
the spider’s web, apparently as large as sewing silk, and by this cord the snake 
was suspended. A rude sketch of the serpent suspended in the web was 
made by an eye witness, and is exactly reproduced at Fig. 220. A close 
examination showed that the snake's mouth was entirely closed by a num- 
ber of threads wound around it. Its tail was tied in a knot so as to leave a 
small loop or ring, through which the cord was fastened, as seen in the fig- 
ure. The end of the tail above (cephalad of) this loop, to the length of 
half an inch, was lashed fast to the cord to keep it from slipping. As the 
snake hung, the length of the cord from its tail to the focus to which it 
was fastened was about six inches. A little above the tail was a round 
ball about the size of a pea, which upon inspection appeared to be a green 
Relative 
Sizes. 
A Spider 
Ensnares 
a Snake. 
‘American Journal of Science and Arts, XX VIL. 1835, page 307, sq. 
