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



foliage of other plants. The spider, a little dull-coloured 

 creature about one-eig-hth of an inch long, is by no means 

 uncommon ; but it is not easily discovered. When in its usual 

 position under the trap-line, its body is close against the twig to 

 which the line is attached, and its legs are drawn together, so 

 that the animal forms a compact brown mass, about the size 

 and shape of a raisin-seed, much resembling the little pro- 

 jections commonly found on dry twigs."* Even the peculiar 

 snare is apt to be mistaken for a fragment of the snare of some 



Fig. 2. — A snare of Hyptiotes cavatus,' spun on a dry bush in a New England stone- 

 fence. After McCook, [American Spiders and their Spinning-work, I. (1889), p. 181, 

 Fig-. 169. Reduced. 



ordinary Epeirid. ' Strolling through the woods near Ithaca, 

 New York, one October afternoon,' says Wilder, ' I saw, upon 

 a leafless hemlock branch, what looked like a piece of the net 

 of some geometrical spider ; ' still there was a regularity in the 

 triangular net which did not accord with the idea of its being 

 a fragment, and a closer examination showed that its form and 

 structure were perfect and unbroken ; and, moreover, 4 instead 

 of hanging loosely from the twigs, it was upon the stretch, as if 

 constantly drawn by a power at one or the other end.' 



* Wilder, 1875, I.e. 



Naturalist, 



