Superfamily Argiopoidea 



weavers. From the time the egg-sac is made until the spiderlings 

 are ready to emerge, the mother carries about with her, wherever 

 she goes, this great silken ball with its load of eggs or of young. 

 The difficulty of doing this can be seen by a glance at the figure 

 of Pisaurina mini and her egg-sac (Fig. 683). The egg-sac is 

 held under the body; and is so large that the mother is forced 

 to run on the tips of her tarsi in order to hold the load clear of 



Fig. 683. PISAURINA MIKA AND HER EGG-SAC 



obstructions. The specimen figured was resting on my table 

 at the time the picture was taken ; but the egg-sac is held free from 

 the ground when the spider runs. 



Just before the young are ready to emerge from the egg-sac, 

 or just after they begin to do so, the mother fastens it among 

 leaves at the top of some herbaceous plant or at the end of a 

 branch of a shrub, and builds a nursery about it by fastening 

 the leaves together with a net-work of threads (Fig. 684). 

 She then remains on the outside of the nursery guarding the 

 young. 



Sometimes, as is frequently the case with Dolomedes fontanus, 

 the nursery is made in an angle between stones and consists only 

 of threads. While this habit of building a nursery is not universal 

 in the family, it is sufficiently common to warrant the use of the 

 term nursery-web weavers as a popular name for the family; 

 they are also termed the pisaurids. 



The members of the Pisaurida? are characterized by the pres- 

 ence of a semicircular and bordered notch in the apical margin 

 of the lower side of the trochanters of the legs (Fig. 685). In 

 this respect they differ from the preceding family, the Agelenidae, 

 but resemble the following family, the Lycosidae,»\n which the 

 trochanters are notched in a similar manner. 



The pisaurids differ from the lycosids in that the tibia of the 

 pedipalp of the male is furnished with an external apophysis 



599 



