NOTES. 
[107] 
Too small in body to follow the habits of the other spiders with the slightest chances 
of sueccss, nature has gifted this little heroine with a highly developed intellect by 
which she is enabled to come victorious out of the so uneven tight, for the larva is often 
twenty to thirty fold larger and heavier. 
Let* ns look upon a larva, about half an inch long, feeding, unsuspecting the ap-* 
Broaching danger, on the succulent leaf of the cotton plant. Suddenly we see a small 
bla< k dot not much larger than the head of a pin lowering itself from a leaf above to 
that on which our larva feeds. This little dot is the Theridula, and, alighting on the 
leaf, she rans busily backward and forward about the sluggish larva, always avoid- 
ing to touch and disturb the larva, often climbing on a thread from one side to the 
• >1 In r side, thus surrounding the victim with a nearly invisible system of threads, tire- 
less, adding strength to it, testing here, with all her force, the durability of one cord, 
adding there another loop to a weak point. After an hour or more she has finished 
her work, and suddenly disappears to the underside of the leaf above. Now the larva 
becomes restless, it throws its head angrily about, its whole body jerks wildly, it 
endeavors to walk away, but in vain ; it is held by invisible powers ; nay, it is lifted 
up from the leaf and gradually and noiselessly is hoisted to the underside of the leaf 
above. It is wonderfulwhat strength and what amount of mechanical Ingenuity are 
hen displayed. [Of the mechanism of this hoisting an often twenty times heavier 
weight by the spider we know little, as the threads are very thinaud the spider always 
at t lie underside of a narrow projection, a crevice of a fence rail or stone, or the under- 
side of H leaf, and being very shy, immediately interrupts her work at the slightest 
disturbance. According to my notes it took a Theridulaone hundred minutes to lift a 
larva, over half an inch in length, G| inches to the underside of the plate of my work- 
ing table.] 
Having her prey, which has become exhausted and motionless by its fruitless en- 
deavors to free itself, securely fastened to a projecting vein of the leaf, our little hero- 
ine n<»w throws out by her hind feet a mass of threads which she fastens over the larva 
at the same time. Slowly and at long intervals does the larva move in its ties while the 
little spider runs busily about it, fastening it with more ropes to the leaf; this takes 
another hour, and now she cautiously approaches the larva, and after repeated trials 
sin- has selected the right spot, generally at the second or third segment, into which 
ebe introduces her poisonous fangs. Hours afterward we can see the victress motion- 
less in the same position, sipping the sweet juice from the body of her victim. 
The following facts concerning one of the commoner spiders (Oxyopes riridans) were 
pnhli-ihcd by Mr. Hubhard in the American Entomologist, vol. iii, p. 250: 
Jtu/u/tt 28, 1880. — In the field to-day I observ ed a spider, Oxyopes viridans, eating a 
Tachinid (t) fly. These large green spiders are quite common. I am inclined to think 
tin y do not attack the caterpillar. I watched one resting upon the same leaf with a 
worm, to which the spider paid no attention. During the entire morning the spider 
remained upon the same leaf, while the caterpillar wandered to the next leaf, and fed 
in plain sight of the spider unmolested. Another specimen of the same spider ran 
over a leaf, on the underside of which a caterpillar was feeding. The caterpillar 
jerked and shook the leaf, hut the spider paid no attention to it. 
>>l>lcmbtr 3. — This morning I could not find a caterpillar in the "Simpson cotton," 
excepting one just hatched. I saw the green Oxyopes feeding upon a bee, Anthophora 
or Mrgachile, or some bee of medium size. (I did not succeed in securing it.) There 
are many burrows of a OotnieUl larva (probably C. punctulata, which is abundant in 
the cottou fields). They (the larva?) capture ants chiefly. 
Note 29 (p. 102).— Trichogramma pretiosa Riley (Can. Fnt., vol. xi. p. 101.) — 
Length about 0.3 mm , yellow, the eyes red, the wings hyaline. Head wider than the 
thorax; antennae 5 jointed, joints 3 and 4 in the 9 forming an ovate mass, and together 
shorter than joint 2; joint 5 large, thickened, and very obliquely truncate; in the $ 
joints S| 4, and r> form a more or less distinct elongate club, beset with long bristles^ 
Hairs of the wings arranged in about fifteen lines. Abdomen not so wide as the 
thorax, but as long as the head and thorax together ; in the 9 the 6ides subparallel 
and the apical joint suddenly narrowed to a point. 
Differs from Tr'ulionramma minuta Riley (Third Rep. Ins. Mo., p. 158, fig. 72, 9 ) in 
its smaller size and uniform pale yellow color, and also in the form of the third and 
fourth joints of the antenn®. 
Note 29a (p. 104). — This species, although so much resembling the Trichogramma 
egg parasite, belongs to the family ProctotrupidaB, subfamily Mymarinse. We have 
erected for it, provisionally, the MS. genus Metamymar, and have given it the specific 
name of aleurodis. 
