194 Kew : Snares or Snap-nets of Triangle Spiders. 



Ithaca, New York, and by Dr. McCook in the neighbourhood 

 of Philadelphia and elsewhere ; in the opinion of the last-named 

 naturalist it will probably be found to inhabit a great part of the 

 United States. 



The snares of these spiders, from their almost unique shape, 

 and from the almost unique fact that they are capable of being 

 ' snapped ' by the owner, have naturally awakened deep interest 

 among* naturalists ;* and it has even been doubted whether it is 

 here or among the symmetrical orb-webs of Epeirids that the 

 snare-making instinct has attained its greatest perfection, f 



The- general form of the roughly triangular snare will be 

 readily gathered from the accompanying illustrations. The 

 structure is seen to consist of a more or less horizontal trap-line, 

 of four radii, attached distally to a more or less perpendicular 

 base-line, and of a variable though limited number of cross-lines 

 overlaying the radii. The trap-line and one of the radii are 

 continuous, and this thread, presumably, is the original founda- 

 tion-line of the snare. On the under-side of the trap-line, close 

 to the object to which the line is attached, the spider takes 

 up its position, clinging back downwards, and having, above 

 it, as shown in Figs. 2 and 5, a coil or loop of slack line, 

 furnishing a clue to the snapping-process already alluded to. 

 The little animals possess the cribellum and calamistra, and use 

 these organs in the fabrication of the- cross-lines, which con- 

 stitute the adhesive prey-catching part of the snare. 



The earlier accounts of the snare refer to Hyptiotes paradoxus, 

 the first with which the writer has any acquaintance being that 

 of Thorell, published in i860. 1 It was in the neighbourhood of 

 Stockholm, in 1855, that Thorell first met with this spider. 

 July, August, and September were the months in which it was 

 found fully grown ; and it occurred principally in woods of trees 

 of the fir kind, especially in pine woods. The following is the 

 account of the snare : — 



Between the dry bare branches of two neighbouring - trees, she spins 

 a strong- thread in a horizontal direction, from a point of which she after- 

 wards draws obliquely downwards three other threads, which form equal 



* McCook, American Spiders and their Spinningwork, I- (1889), p. 180. 

 fPocock, Royal Natural History, VI. (1896), p. 223. 



X Thorell, Till kannedomen om slagtena Mithras och Uloborus, Ofversigt 

 af Kongl. Vetenskaps Akademiens Forhandlingar, XV. (1860), pp. 191-205; 

 the writer quotes from the paragraphs translated by the author in his 

 European Spiders, 1869, pp. 67-7,1 (Nova Acta Regise Societatis Scientiarum 

 Upsaliensis (3), VII., 1870). 



Naturalist, 



