1926 ] 
Social Habits of Some Canary Island Spiders 
31 
spider is usually found resting at the end of the lowermost 
cocoon. 
The Argyrodes, which are black, with pale legs and extensive 
silver spots on the abdomen and are very much smaller than the 
adult Cyrtophoras (adult female only 4 . 5 mm. ; adult male 3 . 5 
mm.), were also present in all the webs which I examined. They 
seem to make no webs of their own but live in the coarse frame- 
work of the structure spun by the larger species. Like the latter, 
they are present in considerable numbers, of all sizes and of both 
sexes. They were seen feeding on midges and other small insects 
caught in the coarse yellow strands. When disturbed they 
quickly drop to the ground by letting out a thin silken filament, 
but the Cyrtophoras run off to the side and hide in the foliage of 
the plant supporting the web. The egg-cocoons of the Argy- 
rodes resemble certain seed-capsules and are of the peculiar 
type seen in other species of the genus, being small subspherical 
or pear-shaped, yellowish brown, papery- walled structures. 
One pole of the capsule is prolonged into a stiff stem, or pedicel 
by which the capsule is suspended from the threads of the web 
and at the opposite pole there is a small circular, protruding rim. 
The habits of Cyrtophora citricola and Argyrodes argyrodes 
thus resemble those of Nephilla plumipes and Argyrodes nephiilve , 
which Mr. Nathan Banks and I observed in Panama. In a vol- 
ume soon to be published 4 I have described the behavior of these 
spiders and have cited the observations of others on similar 
gregarious or social habits in the species of Uloborus, Anelosimus, 
Epeira, Stegodyphus, Coenothele, etc. in various parts of the 
world. 
4 Les Societes d’lnsectes, Doin, Paris 1926. 
