xviii INTRODUCTION 



with them. Bushes may be swept in the same way, or may be 

 shaken over an open umbrella, or a piece of cloth or paper. In 

 winter, when spiders are torpid, great numbers can be found 

 by sifting the dead leaves that have been lying for some years 

 in the woods. A common coal sieve is fine enough to hold the 

 leaves while the spiders and sticks and dirt pass through, and 

 may be picked over on a cloth or carried home in a bag and 

 examined in the house. The sifting should be repeated several 

 times, as many of the spiders hold to threads among the leaves 

 and become loosened only after much shaking. 



In the following pages a general description is given of each 

 family, followed by descriptions of the species belonging to it, 

 with a figure of each species placed as near as possible to the 

 description. In some cases, where the genera are large and 

 well defined, separate descriptions are given of each genus, but 

 where the genus is not easy to distinguish or represented by 

 only a few species, there is no separate generic description, and 

 the species are placed next to those of other genera to which 

 they are most closely related. If the names of spiders are 

 known, they can readily be found by the index at the end of 

 the book. If information is sought about an unknown spider, 

 the illustrations through the book furnish the most convenient 

 index, as the general form and proportions of spiders and the 

 arrangement of their eyes usually show to what family they 

 belong. The ground spiders and those without cobwebs are 

 described first, and the sedentary species living in webs in the 

 last half of the book. Readers unfamiliar with the subject are 

 advised to read first the descriptions of the families and com- 

 pare with them the spiders that they find in their own neigh- 

 borhoods. The figures are in most cases enlarged for the sake 

 of distinctness, and spiders of much smaller size must be 

 looked for. 



