Insect miscellanies / [Anon].

Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect miscellanies / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/452 (page 5)
    _ SENSE OF TOUCH. sae, succeeded in bringing the spider to the spot, because, as we inferred, her eyes always detected our attempted deception. But when a fly is held near a web and made to buz, the spider in most cases will peep from her lurking- -hole, to look whether it has not been caught in some of the lines or meshes not under her view, proving that the sense of hearing is as acute and useful in such cases as either vision or touch. It appears, further, that a small spider ascertains by fouch the superior strength of a blow-fly or a large syrphus which may chance to be caught in its web, hesitating long before venturing tu attack it, and — sometimes never venturing at all,—a circumstance we have often remarked, and we have frequently, be- sides, repeated the experiment of putting large flies in the webs of small spiders with similar results.* The stretching out of the legs of the long-bodied spider ( Tetragnatha extensa, Latr.), when it places itself in the centre of its geometric web, appears to have given origin tothe opinion under review : though it may be remarked that it does not spread its legs around so as to take cognizance of as many lines as possible, but, on the contrary, huddles them into a close bundle, more apparently with the view of mak- ing thein appear motionless and lifeless than actively on the alert. ‘This view is still more strongly proved by the circumstance, that when this spider is not on its web watching for prey, but resting on'‘a wall, or in the fold of a leaf, it stretches out its legs in the same manner. The long-legged house spider (Pholcus phalan- giotdes, Waucx.) may be referred to as giving more countenance to the opinion, because it not only spins a very loose irregular web in the corners of walls, but keeps its legs spread about as if on purpose to feel the more readily when any thing is caught. We « he R.