320 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
with the mothers until they gain a considerable size—a period of several 
weeks. The first, and probably the second, moult take place within the 
_ nest, the third occurs after the spider has commenced life on 
Domicile its own account. Although so numerous, the juvenile Ripariums 
and . : ae 
mura Mr. Robertson’s artificial nests appeared to be on very good 
terms, seldom engaging in any quarrels—not so frequently, he 
thought, as the same number of boys in a school would have done. The 
mother Theridium exhibits wonderful affection for her eggs and young. 
The food of the spider is principally ants, and many deserted nests 
were literally full of the remains of these insects. House flies, when 
trapped upon the snares, are held very tenaciously by the viscid 
globules which, Mr. Robertson asserts, are dispersed over the in- 
tersecting lines. It is most interesting to watch the proceedings of the 
juveniles when the mother is endeavoring to catch a fly. Hearing or 
seeing a disturbance, a young spider cautiously descends a line, followed 
at a distance by another and another. These approach the victim, eyi- 
dently as anxious to assist the mother as children are to use their little 
fingers when they see others busy. The fly struggles in its toils, and 
away scamper the young spiders as fast as tiny legs can carry them, re- 
peating this process until they can make a meal off the fly. When an 
insect is captured it is usually enswathed and drawn up within the nest 
to be devoured. 
These examples would seem to indicate that among our American The- 
ridioids we may expect to find the nesting habit much more strongly de- 
veloped than has heretofore been supposed. At all events, it is seen that 
this tribe has in some of its representatives fair rivals of the Orbweavers 
in the perfection of the nesting habit. The difference in the use, in the 
case of Theridium, appears to be that the nests of Orbweavers are habit- 
ually the dwelling places of their builders, while those of Lineweavers 
are not so much permanent dwelling places as retreats for the cocooning 
season. However, the Orbweaver’s nest is also occasionally used to house 
her cocoon, 
One may find rude examples of the nesting habit in the genus Liny- 
phia. There is no more common or more interesting snare along the 
skirts of our American woods, especially in the Middle and At- 
Nesting antic States, than that of Linyphia marginata, This consists of 
ane dome of open meshwork which is stretched in the midst of a 
maze of crossed lines. It looks not unlike a miniature umbrella 
minus a handle and hung by innumerable cords to the foliage. (Fig. 157.) 
Within this structure the spider has her abode, hanging inverted, close to 
the ceiling, ready to dash through the flimsy fabric and seize the unfor- 
tunate victims that drop down upon the roof through the labyrinth aboye. 
Linyphia communis spins a nest precisely like the above in structure, 
but differing from it in that the concavity of the dome is invariably 
Food. 
=a “ws 
