Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-11-08
No. 81.
ABOUT SPIDERS
Their Prey, Their COurtship and Their
Enemies.
philadelphia Press.

philadelphia Press
The destruction OF insects by spiders is,
enormous. | have counted $50 insects
small and great, hanging entangled in one
orb web. In one net in Fairmount Park
/ counted thirty y-eight mosquitoes; in an
other, hung under a bridge in Ashbury
Park and out of reach, there must have,
been two or three times as many. Green
head flies by the legion have been seen in
the webs that fairly enlace the boat houses
at Atlantic City and Cape May. The very
small spiders prey upon microscopic insects.
like gnats and devour myriads. A glance
at the fields, bushes and trees on adewy
morning in September will reveal an in
Vulnerable multitude of webs spread over
the landscape, all occupied by spiders Of
various ages, sizes and families, and all
busy destroying the insect pests of man.
There are several species of spiders di-
vided into two classes, the sedentary and
the wandering spiders. To the first class
belong the orb weavers, who make circu-
lar web; the line weavers, whose web is
labyrnthian; the tube weavers, who hang
their webs on walls or rocks or branches of
trees, and the tunnel weayers, who live in
tunnels cut into the earth and having au-
tomato doors ingeniously contrived. In
the wanderers are included the cetegrades,
whose motions are quick and vivatious;
the laterigrades, who have qeer sideways
motion, and the saltigrades, who jump, and
dance and vault The dolomede spider is
a swimmer, and lives on and under water.
She builds her nest on detached branch
of tree or bush, which makes into tent.
The argiopa fasciapa or banded spider, is a
silver yellow and black color.
Spiders are not sociable creatures They
are generally, on the contrary, of solitary
habits, and are mostly cannibals, eating
each other with great gusto. They mate
in the spring and autumn, and the mating
is often very trying and dangerous one.
They reverse the order of nature in one re-:
spect, for the males are infinitely inferior
in every respect to the females, and the
latter are well aware of the fact. Them
courtships are scenes Of violence, and not
of love and peace. The lady looks with
sublime contempt upon the gentleman and
keeps him at distance. He can only ap-
proach her by strategem, and sometimes
she nips off one of his legs in her anger and
casts him adrift cripple. l have seen
poor fellows who lost four out of their
eight legs, and still they were attracted to-
the opposite sex like moths to candle
A spider will never eat her own young, but
the males will destroy them when they
can. - The mother either goes away or dies
soon after the Matching of her eggs which
number about one hundred to each nest,
and the little ones are thrown upon the
world almost as soon as they see light.
There are several varieties, however, who
carry their eggs in silk pouch until they
are hatched. The tube weavers sometimes,
care for their young until they are able to-
get about, and had brood of about six
ty in my yard until the rains destroyed
them.
Spiders have numerous enemies and
much of their clever nest building is de-
signed for protection against these inroads.
Toads and birds destroy them by the thous
ands and little parasite called the ich-
neumon-a small t1y-lays its eggs in the
cocoons of the spider, and when the larva
appears it feeds first on the spiders eggs and
later ON the young spiders. Orb weavers.
and line weavers desert their eggs when
laid, and meet their off spring, where they
live so long, as strangers. Another bitter
enemy of the spider is the mud daubing
wasp, who has process that might be val
liable to humanity, if it could be discov-
cred, of keeping supply freshment. When
they capture spider that is not needed for
present use. they sting it in such a man
ner that it lives, but has no power to move
until such time as the captor is ready to
devour it. 1t is rather a singular thing
that the wasp in its babyhood feeds on
meat, but in its maturity eats nothing but
the nectar of flowers.
"W. J. c." writes to London Nature
"Your correspondent, Mr.. Frank Rowboth-
am, in his letter on the Habits of Spiders
gives it as his opinion that the spider
shakes the web from desire to effect con-
cealment when it feels danger is near I
am inclined to think it does so from a feel
ing of anger. During long residence in
tropics / often amused myself irritating
spiders and watching their conduct. no
ticed that they generally seized the web
and shook it up and down in the manner
described by your correspondent, but some
of the spiders were of so great size as to-
render concealment by such manoeuvre-
quite hopeless, and l attributed their be-
havior to other motives. They appeared
to me more to resemble angry monkeys
than anything else l have not unfrequent-
ly seen the latter, when annoyed, jumping
up and down on all fours with their tails
erect in the air, or if confined in cage,
seize the bars with their hands and feet
and shake them as the spiders did their
webs"