94 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK, 



Fig. 73. Cocoon of Meta menardi. (About one- 

 third larger than natural size. 



and green color. The case which envelops it is twenty millimetres long, 

 and tlie central egg mass measures four-fifths of an inch (ten millimetres) 



in width. The centre, which contains 

 the eggs, is white, but grows brown from 

 the moment of enclosure. 



The cocoon of Meta menardi, as I 

 have found it, is a somewhat oblong 

 roll of brownish silk, not very com- 

 pact in texture, but sufficiently open to 

 allow one to see the eggs enclosed with- 

 in. It is deposited near the snare of 

 the female, and simply attached to some 

 surface by a rather sparing system of 

 supporting lines.! According to Blackwall, the species (Epeira fusca) as 

 observed by him in North Wales makes a cocoon somewhat different 

 from this. In autumn the female fabricates a large oviform 

 menardi °^*^°^^ ^^ white silk, of so delicate a texture that the eggs, 

 connected together by silken lines in a globular mass a quarter 

 of an inch in diameter, may be seen distinctly within it. Its transverse 

 axis measures about eleven-tenths of an inch, and its conjugate axis 

 eight-tenths. It is attached by numerous lines, generally forming a short 

 pedicle on one extremity to the walls or roofs of the places it inhabits. 

 (See Fig. 74.) The eggs, which are yellow and spherical, arc between four 

 and five hundred in number. ^ The general characteristics of the cocoon 

 as thus described by Blackwall correspond with those of 

 the American species, except in the habit of suspending 

 the cocoon by a short pedicle. However, a wider obser- 

 vation of the American species might show even closer re- 

 semblance in cocooning habit. One or two of my specimens 

 have a little tuft at one pole, as though a slight stalk or 

 attachment had been there made. 



The cocoon of Tetragnatha extensa is a pretty object. 

 I have never seen the mother weaving it, nor have I ob- 

 tained it by confining the female within my trying boxes. 

 But I have found it in the fields, where one may identify 



it by its resemblance to that spun by European na. 

 "^^th*^ individuals of the species; and, moreover, I have 

 Cocoon. ^'^t^l^6<i the young, and thus demonstrated the true 

 cocoon. It is an ovoid object, about quarter of 

 an inch long and three-sixteenths of an inch wide and thick, and is com- 

 monly woven against a leaf, or twig, or bit of bark, or other convenient 



Cocoon 

 of English Meta 

 menardi or Epei- 

 ra fusca. (After 

 Blackwall.) 



' Mr. Isaac Banks has also found it thus placed in Central New York. 

 2 Blackwall, " Spiders of Great Britain," page 350 ; and pi. 26, Fig. 252, g. 



