GENERAL COCOONING HABITS OP SPIDERS. 



147 



Pucetia 

 aurora. 



Among the Gitigrades, Pucetia aui'ora has a special interest, botli from its 

 appearance and structure and from the peculiarity of its cocooning habit. 

 This spider was received in collections sent me by Mr. W. G. 

 Wright, of San Bernardino, California. Numerous specimens of 

 young and old were subsequently sent by Mrs. Eigenmann and 

 others from the same locality. The genus Pucetia belongs to the family 

 Oxyopoidai of the Citigrade spiders, to which it is doubtless relegated in 

 spite of certain analogies with the Satigrades on the one hand and the 

 Laterigrades (Philodrominte) on the other. ^ Mr. Wright describes the 

 specimens sent me as jumping spiders; and Hentz, who describes several 

 species under the generic name of Oxyopes, says that Oxyopes salticus leaps 

 with more force than Attus. This family is arboreal in habit; the spiders 

 are found on plants, with their legs extended, thus practicing Tetragnatha's 

 form of mimicry, and thence spring- 



FiG. 179. English Dolomedes rairabilis carrying 

 her cocoon. {After Blackwall.) 



ing upon their prey. The female's 

 cocoon is usually conical, surrounded 

 with ])oints, placed in a tent made 

 between leaves drawn together and 

 lashed, and is sometimes of a pale 

 greenish color. Oxyopes viridens 

 will make a cocoon suspended mid- 

 way by threads attached to these ex- 

 ternal prominences, and this she will 

 watch constantly from a neighboring 

 site. Hentz also thought that the 

 mother of this species carries its 

 young like a Lycosa.^ 



Pucetia aurora appears to be a new species.'* The body length is four- 

 teen millimetres ; the legs are long and tapering, except among the young. 

 The body is yellow and pale yellow ; the cephalothorax striped longitudi- 

 nally with bright red streaks ; the abdomen marked above with red streaks ; 

 the sternum is red ; the legs are yellow, with red rings at the joints. 

 These red streaks upon the yellow background suggested the specific name 

 of "aurora." 



The cocoon nests, according to Mr. Wright, are uniformly placed upon 

 bushes of Erigonum corymbosum. They are hung from three to four 

 feet above the ground, and, being upon the topmost twigs of the plant, 

 are easily seen from a distance. Tlie cocoons, received by me in consider- 

 al)le number, are straw colored spheres five-eighths of an incli in diameter. 

 Tliey are covered externally with various pointed rugosities, from which 

 numerous lines extend to the adjoining corymb of the plant upon wliich 



' Thorell, On Eiii-dpoan S|.iacrs, pnj^o ]il(l. '^ Sjiiilers of the United States, page 48. 



' Proceed, .\cail. Xat. Sci., 1883, paire 27ii, "Notes on two new (';ilif(.irnia Sjiidere." 



