The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-21
SPIDE RS.


 Often, in the early morning, after 2
 heavy fall of dew, we are surprised tc
 see the grass of the meadows almost
 covered with glistening spider webs
 which, with little imagination we
 might fancy were the white tents of a legion of pigmies. We remember that
 we did not see one of them the evening
 before, and perhaps we wonder if the
 little soldiers have been working to-
 gether all night under a general order
 As matter of fact, the spider webs
 were not all made at once; some of
 them had been there for weeks and
 possibly for months. But we had not
 been hunting for them and they had re-
 mained unnoticed until heavy coating
 of dew had rendered them conspicuous.
 Most of these we shall find to be fun
 nel webs; that is to say, they terminate
 on one edge in silken funnel, In which
 the owner lies in wait for her insect
 prey, and into which she can retire
 when danger threatens her. Like a
 real funnel it is open at both ends, so
 that, if the main entrance is blocked
 by the back door, so to speak, and run away into the grass.
 This funnel-weaver or grass spider, as she is often called, is a brown crea- ture with four pairs of rather long legs two pairs directed forward and two pairs backward. Her body Is stout and hairy and terminates in point. When watching for her prey she hides in the funnel, with perhaps nothing visible but her fore legs. She is very wide awake, however, and if we drop a fly or small grasshopper into the web, she will rush out and seize 1t, and then hurry into the den, where she will quickly devour it.
 The true funnel-weavers may be dis tinguished from ther spiders which sometimes make tunnels, by the fact that the latter run back -downwards on the lower side of the web, while the former do not.
 On the same dewy morning on which serve between the fence rails and across convenient openings in the for est the beautiful geometrical struc- lures of the round web or orb weaving spiders. Unlike funnel webs and oth- CTS which, with necessary repairs, are often made to last season, these round webs are destroyed and rebuilt every night. The speed and accuracy with which the work is accomplished cannot fail to execute our admiration for the tiny engineers, and no dascrip- -.sx f,- idea of the operation as we can get al- most any afternoon or evening in the summer of autumn by watching a sin gle spider.
 As we all know, a spider has, inside her body a quantity of fluid islk, which she can pass out at will through her spinnerets, and which hardens almost immediately on contact with the air. The spinnerets of which there are two pair, are small protubarances situated ,n the under side of the abdomen near he tip. Each of them consists Of a great number of infinitely small tubes, md the end of spinneret under a mi ,roscope looks something like the top # a pepper-box. Through each spin leret is spun thread of silk, which inc as it appears to our eyes, Is com posed of perhaps two hundred minute trands, one from each of the tubes of which the spinneret is composed.
 When an orb weaver has formed a uitable place to make her web, she pins out thread, which swings about n the breeze until it catches on twig, weed stalk or other object. Then she lauls it taut makes fast and she has
 sort of scaffolding from which to york. First she makes frame round | he space, running along from point to | oint, spinning out the thread as she | oes, and carrying it on an outstretched | eg to prevent its catching where she | bread to some point, runs round to the | pposite side of the space, draws it | ight and fastensit . Then, like a skill ul tight-rope walker she goes out to he middle of the line, where she fast ms the end of another thread. This he carries back on her outstretched leg | ) point perhaps two inches from the rst, and when 1t Is made fast she all eady has three spokes In her wheel tack and forth she runs to and from he center, putting in spoke after spoke ntil all the radiating lines are in lace and nothing remains to be done ut to put in the spiral. And now omes one of the most curious parts of ne operation. Instead of making the aquired spiral at once, the spider be- ins by building temporary spiral
 hich she uses as a sort of staging 'om which to make the one she in- ends finally to use Beginning at the enter, she works outward, coil after 1il, until she almost reaches the cir inference. Then she turns round and egins to work back toward the center. he spiral she is making now is the ne she requires, and she destroys the
 her as she proceeds, by cutting it ose with her mouth and dropping it the ground. Another interesting pint about the second spiral is that it
 ,,oda of a diffarapt p,atariaI fro,,,