ae ee ee 
CHAPTER XV. 
PROCURING FOOD AND FEEDING. 
Tur Orbweaver’s snare is its tool for trapping insects. It is a notable 
fact in the history of lower animals, that there is at least one order con- 
taining a large group of species which possess the power, other- 
Food wise the almost exclusive gift of man, to procure food by the 
Taking ; A ; 
Tools. medium of manufactured implements. The nearly universal 
habit of natural life is to imbibe nutriment directly, or to secure 
it wholly by means of the feet or mouth or other prehensile organs. The 
Wandering spiders fall into the general course of nature, and seize their 
food directly. The Sedentary spiders form an exception to this rule. 
It is, of course, an interesting speculation how this remarkable habit 
originated, and how it came about that such a marked exception should 
exist in certain tribes of a natural order whose remaining tribes are want- 
ing therein; but Nature thus far has yielded no light upon the subject. 
As far as we are able to judge from fossil spiders, the structural differences 
between such families as Epeirids on the one hand, and the Lycosids 
and Attoids on the other, have remained unchanged from the first appari- 
tion of spider life. It is a fair inference that the functional differences 
have also always existed; that Epeirids have always captured their prey 
through the media of manufactured tools or snares, and that the Lycosids 
have stalked their prey and secured their food without any intervening 
instrument. 
It has already been shown how well adapted an orbweb is for its chief 
purpose. Its combined strength and elasticity, its admirable arrangement 
for the free motion of the spider, its location and characteristics so well 
adapted to arrest the flight of insects, and its armature of viscid beads so 
completely suited to retain and disable the arrested victims—these all form 
an implement of tremendous facility to the aranead for procuring its nat- 
ural food. The spider when ensconced within its nest holds by 
its claws to the tense trapline, and thus keeps its snare taut. 
When it is suspended at the hub the eight legs, stretched out 
and grasping points of the radii which command the entire snare, enable 
the spider at any time to contract its outlying limes around the centre, 
thus producing the same degree of tension. 
(247) 
Handling 
the Snare. 
