vi] AGELENA 39 



The common house-spiders belong to the family 

 Agelenidae. It is quite likely that their original 

 home was in a warmer climate where they lived out 

 of doors, but that was long ago, and now they 

 uniformly select buildings of some sort for their 

 operations. They have, however, even in this country, 

 several open-air cousins, and most people know the 

 great sheet-web spider of the hedge-rows, though its 

 name Agelena labyrinthica may be new to them. 

 Its web consists of a closely woven wide-spreading 

 sheet connected with a tube of even denser material, 

 in the mouth of which the spider may generally be 

 seen lurking, a rather sinister object. If a better 

 view of the animal is desired it is only necessary to 

 agitate the web slightly and the spider runs forward 

 to investigate. It is a large species as British spiders 

 go about three quarters of an inch in length with 

 the abdomen rather prettily marked with oblique 

 white streaks. 



It is very unlike our garden spider in certain 

 points of structure ; its body is more elongate and 

 rather rigid, with little play of action between the 

 cephalothorax and the abdomen ; its legs are notably 

 long, and so are two of its spinnerets, which can be 

 seen protruding beyond the abdomen as we look 

 down upon it. 



But we shall gain little information by looking 

 at the completed web, and our best plan is to take 



