WEB-SPIDERS. 
231 
captured. It slings up, moreover, a string of cocoons, extending across the web, 
and at one extremity of the line, or amongst the dried carcases of flies, the 
spider takes its stand and harmonises so well in shape and colour with its surround¬ 
ings as to be practically indistinguishable amongst them. Even more interesting 
is Hyptiotes, which frequents pine trees, and is 
a small thick-set little species almost invisible 
on the bark. It spins a web, triangular in out¬ 
line, with anchoring threads passing from each 
and the 
triangular space filled in with cross-lines running 
parallel to the shortest side, and traversed in 
the middle by a single thread running from the 
apex to the base opposite. Taking up its position 
on the long anchoring thread which passes from 
the apical angle, and close to its point of attach¬ 
ment to the branch, the spider pulls in the 
thread so as to draw the whole net taut, coiling 
up the slack line between its front and liind-legs. 
The instant a fly strikes the net, the spider 
loosens its hold of the line, when the snare 
springs forward with a jerk, still further entang¬ 
ling the prey by bringing other threads into 
contact with it. If necessary, the net is snapped 
more than once, and when the spider feels that 
the insect is enveloped, it crawls leisurely along 
the web to devour it. The genus is common to 
Europe and North America. The other members 
of this tribe belonging to the family Argiopidce have no cribellum nor calamistrnm. 
Their webs vary in form, but are mostly of the orb type, consisting of straight 
threads radiating from a centre to the foundation lines, which are stretched from 
one point of support to another, and of a spiral line 
passing from the centre to the circumference, affording 
support to the radial lines and partly filling in the 
spaces between them. The spiral line is the princi 
part of the web involved in the capture of insects, many 
of its strands being covered with a series of gummy 
drops like beads on a string, which greatly hamper the 
movements of a captured insect. The presence and 
position of an insect in the web is perceived solely by 
the delicate sense of touch in the spider’s feet, and for 
this reason the spider either takes up its stand in the 
centre of the web, where its eight legs can command all 
the radii, or else beneath some leaf at the end of a long- 
thread passing from the centre to its place of concealment. In cases of danger the 
spiders either drop to the ground by a thread, or, seizing the web with the tips of 
their feet, start spinning the body round and round in circles and causing the web 
of the angles to surrounding objects, 
an orb-spinner ( Tetragnatha extensa) at 
REST IN ITS SNARE. 
Arrangement of eyes shown above. 
