THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 41 



vated land, and everywhere o\'er the tens of thousands of acres we 

 passed were laid the gossamer threads of spiders, so thickly set 

 that I doubt if one could have placed as much as a finger tip any- 

 where in the fields without touching several strands of the webs. 

 Every tall weed and every fence streamed with the threads, and 

 towards evening the rays of the westering sun were reflected from 

 the shimmering fields like moonlight on a lake. All this was the 

 work of so-called gossamer spiders, formerly thought to be a dis- 

 tinct kind but now known to include the young of many different 

 species. The number of individuals necessary to produce the 

 wonderful effect must have been stupendous indeed, for our drive 

 did not circumscribe the area thus affected, and no doubt the same 

 condition obtained for many miles around our course. 



Spiders are always connected in the popular mind with the 

 spinning of webs and snares to catch the unwary fly, but a great 

 many species resort to no such subterfuge. Of course, all true 

 spiders can spin, but many use their silk only for the manufacture 

 of egg-bags or to line their burrows, or as a life-line b\' which they 

 can drop from danger or save themselves from a fall. Chief 

 among those that spin no web may be mentioned the Attids or 

 Jumping Spiders which leap on their victims unawares; the Thomis- 

 ids or Crab Spiders that lie in wait in flowers to seize insects that 

 come in search of nectar; and the Lycosids or Wolf Spiders, exceed- 

 ingly active runners, that hunt down their quarry in -much the 

 same manner as their mammal namesakes. Of these three families 

 the Wolf Spiders are by far the commonest, and are found every- 

 where in great variety. The original of the accompanying "por- 

 trait" belonged to a rather small-sized species numerously inhabit- 

 ing a sandy beach on the shores of the Ottawa River near Arn- 

 prior. The claw terminating the palp shows this specimen to be a 

 female, for the palps of male spiders end in a curious knob-like 

 organ. This species, which is a typically swift runner, is thickly 

 clothed with very fine, light brown hair, with darker markings — it 

 might almost be called a "fur" — a coloration well calculated to 

 conceal it in its sandy habitat. Indeed, I seldom saw one of these 

 spiders on my frequent visits to this spot during the summer, but 

 one day in the late autumn I noticed the surface of the beach 

 dotted with scores of tiny heaps of fresh, damp sand. On investiga- 



