SPIDERS AND THEIR WAYS. 



791 



Fig. 2.— Jumping 

 Spider { Altua 

 familiaris). 



only a small quantity of silk, they hide themselves in cracks in 

 the walls or in fissures of bark in the shadow of the foliage, and 

 make themselves a lodge out of a smooth or flossy 

 tissue. At the laying of its eggs, the jumper shuts 

 itself up in its shell. One species deposits its eggs 

 without any covering ; a more fortunate species in- 

 closes them in a sack with thin and almost diapha- 

 nous walls. Not having the faculty of spinning 

 webs, the saltatory spiders are hunters, and have to 

 fast if the weather is bad. On pleasant days they 

 are to be found all around, and, having eyes all over the cephalic 

 region, some of them quite small and others of enormous size, 

 they can look accurately through all the surrounding space, 

 which they explore slowly and with care. If a fly is in sight, the 

 spider lances itself upon it with dizzy rapidity. It measures its 

 distance so well that it rarely misses ; but, if this should happen, 

 no harm comes to it, for it has fixed a thread to its starting-point, 

 which, unrolling as it leaps, prevents its striking upon the ground, 

 and affords an easy road back to its position. 



Some spiders are wealthy, having at their disposal an immense 

 quantity of textile matter, which is renewed continually ; others 

 produce but little, and have to live in cells under stones or dead 



Fig. 3.— Wolf Spider {Lycosm fertifera). Fig. 4.- 



-HuxTrNG Spider (Dolomedes mirabilis), 

 with a bag of eggs, 6. 



leaves, in the cracks of trees, and in walls. They have to hunt 

 their game in the fields, along the edges of the water, or among 

 aquatic plants. They are the Lycosce. (Fig. 3). The smaller, dark- 

 colored species of central Europe have little to attract the eye ; 

 but occasionally the attention of the careful observer is directed 



