ee 
PROCURING FOOD AND FEEDING. 255 
are used to cling by, while the third and first pairs are used to turn 
and handle the flies. 
Curiously enough the Orbweayer, although she makes her snare for 
the express purpose of capturing her food, sometimes shows a manifest 
: unwillingness to have 
“A Time . : 4 
te Kap.” it serve its purpose in 
any other than the reg- 
ular and approved manner. On 
one occasion I saw an_ insect 
strike the orb of a Furrow spi- 
der, and on another occasion that 
of a Domicile spider, when the 
snares were only partly spun. 
Both animals acted precisely 
alike—they seized and swathed 
the flies, but, instead of feeding SE 
upon them then and there, hung S45 
them up for future use and re- 
sumed their net building. I have 
seen this act repeated many times 
by various species. Another spider (Epeira domiciliorum) having caught 
and wrapped up an insect that had struck her unfinished net, deliberately 
and, as I fancied, with a show of indignation, cut away and cast out the 
trussed captive from the snare! It was a most emphatic illustration of the 
proverb, “A time to keep and a time to cast away.” I laughed heartily at 
the action, which I involuntarily associated with some ultra conservative 
human friends of mine, who are most unready to receive truth and other 
blessings that do not come to them through the ordinary 
and approved channels. Doubtless the instinct of net 
_ building, in the above cited cases, when once excited, 
proved too strong to be seriously diverted or delayed by 
any ordinary conflicting sensation. 
Influenced apparently by the same impulse, I have seen 
a Vertebrata and also Cophinaria stopping in the midst of 
laying in spiral lines to secure and swathe an insect which 
had struck the orb. In these cases, instead of leaving the 
insect swathed and trussed up for future use and then 
Fic. 236, Atrussed Teturning to the work of completing the spirals, the spiders 
wy Rang out um held the captured prey within their mandibles, resumed 
crosoma’s web. 3 . ar = 
their work, and carried the victim around during the en- 
tire process. The web completed, the quarry was taken to the centre 
and fed upon leisurely. In both cases about half of the spiral space had 
been finished before the insects struck the web and became entangled within 
its meshes. 
Fic. 235. A mummied fly trussed up. 
