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324 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
As a result of the above comparative study of the nesting industry of 
the spider fauna, we may conclude that there is one germinal or typical 
form of nest among all the tribes, which form is the tube. 
Around this common and rudimentary form the greatly varied 
and widely divergent nests of spiders, whether known as dom- 
iciles, dens, tents, tunnels, or caves, may be grouped in series of more or 
less modified forms. ; 
It may be allowable to say, using the language of accommodation, that 
all these variations have been developed in these various species around 
this typical and germinal form; but the statement cannot be said to rest 
upon any demonstration of actual facts, and 
must stand simply as a convenient and appro- 
priate formula for expressing certain relations. 
It is, however, a sufficiently interesting discov- 
ery that, amidst so many forms which at first 
sight appear to be widely different, one is able 
to trace with striking and manifest clearness a 
common plan. 
As one considers them, he is conscious of 
something like the feelings with which he wan- 
ders through the studio of an artist of fecund 
and versatile genius. Variety of invention and 
detail in execution are certainly manifest; but 
One Typi- 
cal Form. 
student traces of a single mind, whose dominant 
characteristics inevitably assert themselves in its 
products. The details vary; the Author’s style 
ea is one. Perhaps this unity of plan is not to be 
Fic. 307, Partly covered and sanded wondered at, when we reflect that the physio- 
ic age a ae ae logical characteristics of spiders in all tribes and 
species are not widely different, and hence the functions might be expected 
to find very similar expressions, at least in certain fundamental points. 
III. 
In comparing the detailed studies of the manner in which the various 
tribes of spiders construct the typical tubular nest, one reaches the con- 
clusion that there is little or no difference in the processes as 
Uniform pursued by individuals. When Epeira constructs a tubular den, 
apie gio she proceeds in her work in precisely the same way as Agalena 
Method, When laying out the tubular part of her snare, or as Abbot's 
Atypus, the Purseweb spider, when constructing the long tube 
within which she spends her life. So, also, the Basket Argiope, when 
spreading the thickening shield which forms the centre of her orb, has 
the same method as the Speckled tubeweaver or the Medicinal spider when 
everywhere, also, are apparent to the critical _ 
ln lt aii i 
