Abstract
By measuring 44 webs of Aranaea diadema and Meta reticulata, the author found a tendency of these spiders to keep a constant proportion between length and breadth of each segment (a quadrangle surrounded by 2 radial and 2 secant threads of the cobweb). In the upper parts of the web where the distances between 2 radial threads are much larger than in the lower parts, the spiders follow that rule much more exactly than in the lower parts where the radial threads are denser, and where the distances between the secant threads remain almost constant. From this fact the author concludes that distances must transgress a certain min. amt. if that rule shall be obeyed. In the different spp. of spiders that min. amt. is quite different; in Hyptiotes paradoxus, e.g., it is higher than in the spp. mentioned above. In the reach of absolutely large distances, that is in the exterior parts of big webs, spiders follow this "segment-rule," too, even if the angles between the radial threads are small.