American spiders and their spinningwork. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits (1890) (14591556919)

Identifier: americanspiderst02mcco (find matches)

Title: American spiders and their spinningwork. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits

Year: 1890 (1890s)

Authors: McCook, Henry C. (Henry Christopher), 1837-1911

Subjects: Spiders -- United States

Publisher: (Philadelphia) author, Academy of natural Sciences of Philadelphia

Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library

Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI Library

Text Appearing Before Image:

ndividual disposition or circum-stances may produce, the same observer kept together an adult pair ofthis species from the 22d of August to the 28th of October, more than twomonths, and they lived in perfect unity. The male never ceased payingunrequited attentions, except to feed.^ Excepting one spider, Argyroneta aquatica, whose male is larger thanliis mate, all those found in Great Britain have the female either equalin size to, or else larger than, the male. (See Figs. 9, 10.) TheRelative difference, however, between the sexes in these northern regionsSize of -^ ^^^^ carried to the extreme limits which are frequently reachedin the tropics. For example, Nephila chrysogaster Walck., analmost universally distributed tropical Epeiroid, measures two inches inlength of body, while that of the male scarcely exceeds one-tenth of aninch, and is less than one thirteen-hundredth part of her weight. In other Apteres, I., page 143. ^ Pairing of Tegenaria guyonii, page 168. WOOING AND MATING. 25

Text Appearing After Image:

26 AMERICAN SPIDEES AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. words, the female is twenty times as long and thirteen hundred times asheavy as her partner. Dr. Vinson ^ strikingly represents this disparityof size in the species Nephila nigra (Vinson), which is here presented,(Fig. 6), with both sexes natural size. A full grown female of our BasketArgiope bears about the relative proportion to the size of her male, of ahorse to a large dog. The largest female Argioj^e measures in bodj lengthone inch, in spread of legs three inches. Her abdomen is thick in pro-portion. A male has a body length of one-fourth inch, the spread of legsbeing one inch and a quarter. Fig. 14 will show the relative body lengthsand sizes of the sexes of Argiope cophinaria. This disproportion, however, in the size of the sexes is not universal. Insome species, as Mill be found by a reference to the plates in Volume III., thedifference is slight, and, indeed, is sometimes on the side of the male, evenamong Orbweavers, as in the case

american spiders and their spinningwork book illustrations natural history industrial history spiders images from internet archive

1890

MBLWHOI Library

http://commons.wikimedia.org/

public domain