344 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
to thicken that portion of her snare in which she hangs back downward. 
This is a most natural action, resulting from several facts. First, as she 
passes from her resting point to the various parts of her snare in which 
insects are entangled, she spins out an anchorage for the dragline, by 
which she is sure to connect herself to this roosting spot. 
Again, when she returns with her prey, she swings her abdomen around 
several times, before finally settling for her banquet, and at each time she 
ejects a similar jet of silk and unites the thickened spots by a little thread. 
(See Fig. 59, page 61.) Still further, in her restless movements back 
and forward over her web, around this central roost, she throws out sim- 
ilar anchorages and lines. Thus, this spot and its vicinity in a little 
while become much thicker than the surrounding portions of the snare. 
Fic. 335. Linyphia’s snare among the morning glories. 
Here, now, we have the germ of the typical snare of the genus Liny- 
phia. In point of fact, it consists, as I have already shown (Chap- 
ter IX.), of a sheet like bit of spinningwork, whose fibres are 
eee! very open, or, as one might otherwise express it, of a netted 
ae ane sheet of spinningwork, whose meshes are very close. Our origi- 
Linyphia, 221 snare of irregularly crossed lines has thus advanced a step 
toward a meshed sheet like snare. In many species of the genus 
Linyphia the snare is simply a netted sheet, more or less horizontal, haying 
outgoing straight lines, which support it above and below. It thus very 
