SPIDERS. 



119 



o 



O o 



o O 



Acrosoma, a tropical genus rich in species, the abdomen is prolonged into a long 



horn on either side. Nepliila has a long cylindrical abdomen. N. plumipes is found 



in the Southern States. The sexes differ greatly in size. 



Van Hasselt has made some interesting comparisons of 



the relative proportions of the two sexes, and says that 



the same dimensions applied to the human species would 



result in a man six feet in height and weighing 150 



pounds, married to a woman from seventy-five to ninety 



feet in height, and weighing 200,000 pounds ! 



Most of the Epeiridae are brightly colored, and make 

 no attempt at concealment when in the web. Others 

 have odd shapes and colors, and hang in the web in such 

 positions that they look like anything but animals. Some 

 species draw up their legs against their triangular abdo- 

 mens, and look like bits of bark fallen into the web. 



-I-. -11 -,! FIG. 171. Epeira diadema. cross- 



Some are long and slender, and when at rest, either in spider; above; the arrangement of 



the web or out, lay their legs close together before and 



behind their bodies, so as to look like straws. Others have oddly shaped abdomens, 



under which the rest of the body is partly concealed. 



The THERIDIIDJS is the largest family of Spiders. Its members have the first pair 

 of legs the longest. The webs are more or less irregular in shape, and the species 

 always live upside down, hanging by their feet from the under side of the webs. They 



FIG. 172. Acrosoma arcuata. 



are almost invariably found in shady places. Theridion vulgare, a species which varies 

 greatly in color, from a cream white to a livid brown or plumbeous, is very common in 

 houses, and with Tegenaria clomestica shares the common name, house-spider. In Phol- 

 cus the legs are very long and slender. Erigone embraces some of the smallest 

 spiders known. To this family belongs also the blind genus Anthrobia, a species of 

 which is not uncommon in Mammoth Cave. 



