The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

156 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK.
have found some of these spiders in my garden, when the
weather, towards spring, was very hot, but they are not so
eager in hunthig as in Italy*."
We have only to add to this lively narrative, that the hunt-
ing-spider, when he leaps, takes good care to provide against
accidental falls by always swinging himself from a good strong
cable of silk, as Swammerdam correctly states!, and which any-
body may recognise, as one of the small hunters [iSalticus
sceniats), known by its back striped. with black and white like
a zebra.
Mr. Weston, the editor of " Bloomfield's Remains," falls into
a very singular mistake about hunting-spiders, imagining them
to be web-weaving ones which have exhausted their materials,
and are therefore compelled to hunt. In proof of this he gives
an instance which came under his own observation + !
" As a -contrast," says Mr. Rennie, " to the little elastic satin
nest of the hunter, we may mention the largest with which we
are accjuainted,—that of the labyrinthic spider [Agelena laby-
rinthica, Walckenaer). Our readers must often have seen
this nest spread out hke a broad sheet in hedges, furze, and
other low bushes, and sometimes on the ground. The middle
of this sheet, which is of a close texture, is swung hke a sail-
or's hammock, by silken ropes extended all around to the
higher branches ; but the whole curves upwards and back-
wards, sloping down to a long funnel-shaped gallery which is
nearly horizontal at the entrance, but soon winds obliquel}- till
it becomes quite perpendicular. This curved gallery is about a
quarter of an inch in diameter, is much more closely woven
than the sheet part of the web, and sometimes descends into a
hole in the ground, though oftener into a group df crowded
twigs, or a tuft of grass. Here the spider dwells secure, fre-
quently resting with her legs extended from the entrance of
the gallery, ready to spring out upon whatever insect may fall
into her sheet net. She herself can only be caught by getting
behind her and forcing her out into the web ; but though we
* Evelyn's Travels in Italy. t Book of Nature, part i. p. 24.
X Bloomfield's Remains, vol. ii. p. 64, note.