By JAMES H. EMERTON Boston, U.S.A., and London GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS The Athenæum Press Entered at Stationers' Hall Copyright, 1902, by JAMES H. EMERTON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 24.12...

There are few books on the American spiders, and these are either large and expensive works or else special papers published by scientific societies, and so little known to the public. Since publishing my papers on the New England and Canadian spiders in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy from 1882 to 1894, I have had frequent calls for a smaller and simpler book to meet the wants of readers who, without making a special study of the subject, want to know a little about spiders in gener

This book is designed to make the reader acquainted with the common spiders most likely to be found over a large part of the United States as far south as Georgia and as far west as the Rocky Mountains. Local collections show that in the neighborhood of any city in the country there are at least three or four hundred species of spiders; but few such collections have been made, and it is not yet possible to tell all the kinds of spiders that live in any particular place, or how far any species ex

These spiders are all pale and most of them without markings. The eyes are close to the front edge of the head and cover more than half its width (figs. 50 , 54 , 56 ). The upper row is longer and the eyes larger and the middle pair farthest apart. The distance between this pair varies according to the species. In crassipalpis and canadensis it is little more than that between the middle and lateral eyes, while in rubra it is nearly twice as great. The mandibles of the females are swelled at the

The Dysderidæ are a small family of spiders resembling in their general appearance the Drassidæ, but differing from them in several important characters. They have only six eyes instead of the usual eight, and they have four breathing holes in the front of the abdomen, two of them leading to the usual lungs and the others to the air-tubes, which in most spiders open just in front of the spinnerets. Dysdera interrita. —Six eyes close together on the front of the head. Length half an inch, with th

The Misumenas are the most conspicuous spiders of their family, and are among the few that are popularly noticed. They grow to a large size and are white or brightly colored, and live in open places on flowers. The males and females differ widely. The males mature early and remain small, and are marked with a variety of colors in spots and bands, while the females grow several times as large, lose in great part their markings, and become white or yellow. In both sexes the two front pairs of legs

In these spiders the general appearance is crab-like. The abdomen is not much larger than the thorax, and both are flat and wide. The first and second legs are a third longer than the third and fourth. The colors are usually various shades of brown and gray, in small spots and bands. On the upper side of each leg is usually a light line, with dark lines on each side of it. The gait is often sidewise, the legs kept close to the ground, so that the spider can move in a narrow crack. They live unde

In these spiders there is less difference in length between the front and hind legs than in Misumena or Xysticus. The legs are long and slender, the second pair longest, and the body is small and flat, and the abdomen pointed behind. The colors are brown and gray, and the whole body is often covered with fine flattened hairs that in the males are iridescent. Philodromus vulgaris lives usually on houses and fences, but the other species on plants. Philodromus vulgaris. —About quarter of an inch l

The Attidæ are jumping spiders, many of them brightly colored and quick in their movements and living in open places among the tops of low plants. They are usually short and stout spiders, with a large cephalothorax, which is wide in front, where the eyes have a peculiar arrangement in three rows (fig. 118) , somewhat as in the Lycosidæ, but with the middle eyes of the front row much the largest, so that at first sight many of them appear to have only two eyes. The eyes of the second row are ver

The genus Lycosa includes spiders that differ greatly in the proportions of different parts of their bodies. In general, they are large and stout and their legs short compared to those of Pardosa and Dolomedes, the front legs being not much longer than the body. In the short and stout species, like pratensis (fig. 170) , the eyes cover only a small part of the head, while in the longer legged and more slender species, like communis (fig. 181) , they are larger and spread farther apart. The head

Pardosa consists of comparatively small spiders, all of them long legged and slender. The head is high in front, and the four upper eyes large and spread over the whole front of the head (fig. 200) . The front row of eyes is plainly shorter than the second row. The colors are generally dark, often black, and with white markings. The spines of the legs are long, even on the front pairs, and the whole body is often covered with long hairs. To show the comparative size of the different species of t

The larger Agalenidæ are the makers of the flat wide cobwebs that are so common on the grass and in the corners of barns and cellars. They resemble some of the Drassidæ, especially Agrœca and Anyphæna (pp. 1-14 ). The head is large and marked off by shallow grooves from the thorax, and is often contracted behind the eyes, so that it is narrower there than in the front. The mandibles are large and, in the females, much swelled at the base in front. The arrangement of the eyes differs little from

The Theridiums are small soft-bodied spiders, making large and loose webs without any large flat sheet of silk, but only a slightly closer portion where the spider stands, or a nest or tent connected with the web. Theridium tepidariorum (fig. 258) and rupicola (fig. 261) live in houses or among rocks, making large loose webs, in which the spider often stands without any covering. They have the abdomen high in front and tapering a little toward the spinnerets. Theridium globosum (fig. 262) has th

Steatoda has the legs shorter and stouter than Theridium. The abdomen is oval and often a little flattened on the back. It is smooth and shining, the hairs being fine and scattered so as to be hardly visible. The thorax is thick and hard, and in some species marked with hard projections and depressions. The head is generally narrow, and the front middle eyes are in several species larger than the others and farther forward and wider apart. In other species all the eyes are about the same size. T

These spiders vary in size like the species of Theridium, from a quarter of an inch to a tenth of an inch long. In appearance they differ greatly from Theridium; the cephalothorax is longer and higher in front, the legs are long and slender, with distinct spines, and the abdomen is sometimes a little flattened on the back as in Steatoda, but oftener high in front and a little pointed toward the spinnerets. The sexes differ little in size, but often in color and markings. The palpal organs and th

The Erigones are all very small spiders, and for this reason few of them will be described. They live, for the most part, near the ground in grass, moss, and dead leaves, with small webs like those of Linyphia, and are seldom seen unless carefully searched for. There is one season of the year, however, when the Erigones appear in immense numbers. This is during the fine weather that comes after the first frosts in October and November, when they, in company with the young of many larger kinds of

We have three species of Zilla, the females of which are so much alike that it is almost impossible to tell them apart. The males also resemble each other closely except in their palpi, which are distinctly different in the different species. They are of moderate size, the largest about three-eighths of an inch long, and in general appearance resemble the genus Steatoda of the Therididæ (p. 119 ). The abdomen is large and oval and a little flattened. The legs are slender and of moderate length,

These are small spiders, with the abdomen extended back half its length beyond the spinnerets, brightly colored, flattened above, and furnished with several pairs of pointed processes. The cephalothorax is longer than in Epeira and Argiope and widest in the middle. The legs are slender and have only fine and soft hairs. The webs (fig. 437) are inclined and have a hole in the middle surrounded by several turns of smooth thread; when hanging in it the spiders look like burrs or seeds. At a slight

The Tetragnathas are slender, usually straw-colored spiders, living in their webs among the long grass in meadows and near water. The legs are slender, the cephalothorax narrow, and the abdomen long and cylindrical. The mandibles are large in both sexes, and in the males are very long and furnished with long teeth at the end and along the inner margin. When pairing, the male and female hold each other by the ends of the mandibles. The eyes are in two rows nearly equal and parallel, and the dista

The Dictynas are all small spiders, not more than a sixth of an inch in length, but are brightly colored and live in webs in open places, where they cannot fail to be seen by any one who looks for spiders. They are not easily frightened, and so their habits can be more easily watched than those of many larger kinds. The heads are high, arching up from the eyes to the highest part opposite the first legs (fig. 476) . The eyes are higher and the front of the head is more nearly vertical than in Am