Author : Henry C. McCook
Publisher :
Page : 506 pages
File Size : 39,82 MB
Release : 2015-08-05
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781332291489
Excerpt from American Spiders and Their Spinningwork, Vol. 2: A Natural History of the Orbweaving Spiders of the United States, With Special Regard to Their Industry and Habits With the completion of the second volume of "American Spiders and their Spinningwork," I feel that have substantially ended the task which many years ago I proposed to myself. That task, as it lay in my purpose, was the description and illustration, in as large detail as possible, of the spinning industry and general habits of true spiders. Subsequently, as announced in the first volume of this work, my plan was so far modified as to make the spinningwork and habits of Orbweavers the principal theme, and to group around the same the industries of other spiders in such relations and proportions as seemed practicable. In the present volume I have adhered to this modified plan, but less closely than in the preceding one, having made large use of the natural history of other tribes than the Orbitelariae. It is probable that this volume will be more interesting than Volume I. both to the scientific and general public. It takes up the life history of spiders, and follows them literally from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave; more than that, it goes beyond the sphere of existing faunal life into the geologic periods, and touches upon the history and destiny of ancestral araneads who lived in the strange surroundings of prehistoric continents, the sites of which are embosomed in the rocks, or, like the amber forests, are now beneath the ocean. The courtship and mating of these solitary creatures; their maternal skill, devotion, and self sacrifice; their cocoon life and babyhood; their youth and old age; their means of communion with the world around them; their voyages through the air and dens in the ground; their allies and enemies; their fashion of death and its strange disguises these and other facts I have fried to bring before the reader in the following pages. Moreover, my studies have necessarily brought me face to face with many of the interesting problems, theories, and speculations of modern science. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."