60 SPIDERS [CH. 



an enemy. The large wolf-spiders have permanent 

 burrows from which they do not wander far and in 

 the mouths of which they spend most of their time, 

 on the look out for passing insects. 



Let us first catch one of the small wolf-spiders 

 and examine it. This is not a very simple operation 

 with creatures which can run so swiftly, but after a 

 few attempts we induce a specimen to run up into a 

 glass tube held in the line of its course. We see it 

 to be a long-bodied spider thickly beset with hairs 

 which entirely hide the integument of the abdomen. 

 Its general hue will probably be a dark grey, and its 

 abdomen will be decorated by a more or less distinct 

 pattern due, not as in the garden spider to pigments 

 in the skin, but to the coloration of the hairs. But 

 look particularly at its eyes. A pocket-lens will 

 suffice to reveal that two of them are much larger 

 and much more business-like in appearance than 

 anything Epeira had to show. These are directed 

 forwards, being placed at the upper angles of the 

 perpendicular front face, so to speak, of the animal. 

 Below them, just above the jaws, are four small eyes 

 in a transverse row, and behind them at some 

 distance, on the upper surface of the cephalothorax, 

 are yet another pair of moderate size. In some 

 groups of spiders the eyes are not only small but 

 have an indefinite, dull, ineffectual appearance ; here 

 they are clear-cut, glossy and convex ; sight 



