Superfamily Argiopoiciea 



times we may see the grass covered by an almost continuous 

 carpet of silk (Fig. 667). 



The grass-spider lives only one year and passes the winter 

 in the egg state, the old spiders dying soon after oviposition 

 in the autumn. It is not till late in May in the North that the 

 small webs of the young spiders first become observable; and it 

 is much later in the season before they reach their full size. If 

 a spider is not disturbed, it occupies the same web throughout 

 the summer, extending it from time to time until it becomes 

 one foot or more across. 



The webs of this spider vary greatly in form and in position; 

 but the typical form is a nearly horizontal, slightly concave 

 sheet, built near the surface of the ground in a grassy place 



Fig. 665. 

 PALPUS OF MALI'. (>!■ AOKLEXA 

 X. KYI A Willi LONG EMBOLUS 



Fig. 666. 



PALPUS OF MALE OF AGELEXA 



\ I A I A Willi SHORTER EMBOLUS 



(Fig. 662); the web is firmly attached to the grass, and there 

 is an irregular open net-work of threads above the sheet sup- 

 ported by stalks of grass that extend above it. The object of 

 this net-work is probably to impede the flight of insects, causing 

 them to fall upon the sheet, where they can be seized by the 

 spider. One side of the sheet is continued into a tubular retreat, 

 which extends downward a greater or less distance, but it is 

 open below so that the spider can escape, by a back door as it 

 were, in an emergency. 



587 



