420 ARACHNIDA—ARANEAE CHAP. 
glowing with vivid colours and metallic hues, and they have fre- 
quently excited the admiration of travellers. The coloration is 
nearly always due to the hairs and scales with which the spiders 
are clothed, and is, unfortunately, almost incapable of preservation 
in the collector’s cabinet. 
These spiders are all wanderers, spinning no snares, though 
they form a sort of silken cell or retreat, in which the female 
lays her eggs. Their habits are diurnal, and they delight in 
sunshine. They stalk their prey and leap upon it with wonder- 
ful accuracy. They invariably attach a thread at intervals in 
their course, and on the rare occasions when they miss their aim 
while hunting on a perpendicular surface, they are saved from a 
fall by the silken line proceeding from the spot whence the leap 
was made, 
The movements of these spiders are sufficient to indicate their 
systematic poser without entering upon structural. details, but 
2 their eyes deserve a special 
mention. They are all 
dark - coloured and very 
unequal in size, and they 
occupy the whole area of 
the caput, usually forming 
a large quadrilateral figure. 
Four large eyes oceupy the 
facies or “ forehead,’ the 
medians being especially 
large. Next come two 
very small eyes, behind 
the anterior laterals, and 
lastly two of medium size 
at the posterior corners of 
the caput. 
This vast family does 
not lend itself easily to 
Fic. 215 .—Attid Spiders. A, Salticus scenicus, 2 ; division into sub-families, 
aA oD oe na for- and it will be impos- 
. sible here to do more 
than indicate a very few of the multitudinous forms. 
The most familiar British example is Salticus scenicus (Epi- 
blemum scenicum), the little black and white striped spider to be 
