HORIZONTAL SNARES AND DOMED ORBS. 



157 



The next most common species of Tetragnatha is the Stilt spider, 

 Tetragnatha grallator Hentz. ^ In color the adult is not so brilliant as 

 Extensa, being a dull gray ; but in its general form, liabits, and 

 the structure of its web it corresponds with Extensa, but is 

 larger, darker, and less attractive in appearance when adult. It 

 differs, also, in its greater fondness for a location near or over water. Its 

 webs are frequently seen stretched above the surface of running streams. 

 In pools, in the quiet nooks of brooklets and creeks, where branches droop 

 down from the banks and overhang the water, I often find a colony of 



The StUt 

 Spider. 



Cmnm^mm^^ 



Fli:. 149. Horizontal orb of the Stilt spider, stretched .above a brooklet (Doe's Run). 



Stilt spiders that have spun their horizontal orbs upon the leaves and 

 twigs close down to the water's face. As the wind moves the branches 

 to and fro the webs almost dip into the stream beneath. Here the crea- 

 tures hang and prey upon the insects that always frequent such sites in 

 great numbers and hover over the stream. (Fig. 149.) 



Another favorite position is underneath the boards and cross logs of 



' T. elongata Walck., Nat. Hist. d. Ins. Apt., ii., page 211. Dr. Thorell has little doubt 

 that Ilentz's species T. grallator is identical with Walckenaer's T. elongatii. See "Aranea? 

 of Colorado," Bulletin T^. S. Geolog. Surv., 1877, page 479. 



