•^6 KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



North America by Simon, two, Hjpochilidce and Prodidomidre, 

 are very sparsely represented, and nothing is known of their 

 •cocooning habits. Some general statements can be made in re- 

 gard to the habits of all the others, but in many cases no spe- 

 cific types can be cited. It is usually difficult, however, to say 

 much in a general way about the habits of a family, for the 

 larger subgroups sometimes take the liberty of differing widely 

 among themselves in respect to methods of cocoon fabrication 

 and care of eggs and young. 



The term "cocoon," as used in this article, refers always to 

 the silken sack used to enclose the spider's eggs. This explana- 

 tion seems necessary, because in entomological discussions the 

 word usually designates the case in which an insect undergoing 

 .metamorphosis passes its pupal life. 



All type descriptions, with three or four exceptions, are based 

 on personal observation. In the case of these exceptions credit 

 is given to the observer. 



GENERAL DISCUSSION. 



Among all the creeping things none deserve less the popular 

 odium and the ill reputation that attaches to them than the 

 spiders. Superstition ascribes to them artful ways and dark 

 designs ; literature associates them with gloomy dungeons and 

 venemous reptiles, while common ignorance invests them with 

 various and sundry undesirable qualities. This is surely hard 

 luck. The outcome of it is that the average newspaper corre- 

 spondent lays at their door the death of every citizen whom a 

 mysterious providence afflicts with septicemia — resulting from 

 scratches — and children are taught to shun or destroy these 

 interesting little spinners who could teach them more in a 

 minute than an ant could in a week. 



Although it is true that spiders will have to plead guilty to a 

 natural ferocity that condemns each one to a solitary existence, 

 and even adds the risk of life to the addresses of courtship, 

 only a lack of knowledge concerning their habits can account 

 for the low esteem in which they are generally held. Famili- 

 arity with their works and ways tends to raise these humble 

 spinners many notches in the scale of our estimation. Certainly 

 no class of insects, that nearlj'- related group comprising more 

 species than all the rest of the animal kingdom together, pre- 



