OUR HOUSE SPIDERS. 
167 
colens , selects cellars, vaults, and other gloomy places, in which 
to procure its prey and provide accommodation for its progeny. 
In June or July the female constructs a globular cocoon of 
yellowish-brown silk, of a slight texture, measuring one- sixth 
of an inch in diameter ; it is usually attached to her spinners 
by fine lines, and contains about ninety-eight spherical eggs 
of a brown colour, not adherent among themselves. 
Family Epeiridce . 
The favourite resorts of Ep'eira fusca, a large species belong- 
ing to this family, are cellars, and damp places imperfectly 
illuminated, in which it constructs an extensive and elegant 
snare, consisting of an elastic spiral line, thickly studded with 
minute viscid globules, whose circumvolutions, falling within 
the same pjane, are crossed by radii, converging towards a 
common centre, which is immediately surrounded by several 
circumvolutions of a short spiral line, devoid of viscid globules, 
forming a station from which the toils may be superintended 
by their owner, without the inconvenience of being entangled 
by them. The radii are unadhesive, and possess only a 
moderate share of elasticity, but the viscid spiral line is elastic 
in an extraordinary degree. Now, the viscidity of this line 
depends entirely upon the viscid globules with which it is 
studded, for if they be removed by careful applications of the 
finger, a fine glossy filament remains, which is highly elastic, 
but perfectly unadhesive. By this property of extreme elas- 
ticity the viscid spiral line is accommodated to frequent and 
rapid changes in distance that take place among the radii 
when agitated by disturbing forces, and by it insects, which 
fly against the snare, are more completely entangled than 
they otherwise could be without doing extensive injury to its 
frame- work. 
For a description in detail of the complicated processes by 
which the symmetrical snares of the Epeirce are produced, the 
reader is referred to the Zoological Journal , vol. v. pp. 181- 
188; and to “Researches in Zoology,” pp. 253-270, the 
subject being too extensive to be introduced in this place. 
In autumn the female of Ep'eira fusca fabricates a large 
oviform cocoon, of white silk, of so delicate a texture that the 
eggs, connected together by silken lines in a globular mass, 
one-fourth of an inch in diameter, may be seen distinctly 
within it ; they are between four and five hundred in number, 
spherical in figure, and of a yellow colour. The cocoon is 
attached to wails and ceilings, by lines forming a pedicle at 
its smaller extremity. 
The haunts of Ep'eira antriada , another species of the family 
of the Epeiridce , are similar to those of Epeira fusca, from which 
