CHAPTER X 



The Hunting Spiders 



T 



JL HE HUNTING SPIDERS ARE FOR 



the most part bold creatures that put only moderate reliance on 

 silk to gain a livelihood and spend much of their life in the field. 

 They run upright on the soil and on vegetation, and maintain this 

 upright attitude even when on webs. Among them are conspicuous 

 extroverts, whose open ways have earned them such names as "wolf" 

 and "fisher" spiders, "running" and "jumping" spiders, and other 

 names that describe quite suitably the characteristics of animals 

 that pursue and overpower their prey by strength, speed, and alert- 

 ness. Their strong, usually elongate and cylindrical bodies are pro- 

 pelled by stout legs of moderate length, as befits runnmg creatures. 

 Many are big-eyed hunters with keen sight that stalk their prey 

 during the daytime. But at the same time we also find numerous 

 allies of retiring, even secretive habits short-sighted vagabonds that 

 skulk under the dark security of debris, that come out only at night 

 to grapple fiercely with small creatures touched by their groping 

 legs. 



The line of the vagrants starts with the same shy, short-sighted 

 ancestral spider that gave rise to the aerial sedentary types. Origi- 

 nally far less venturesome than its cousins, this prototype retired to 

 the cover of a stone or a crevice, where it deposited its eggs and 

 enclosed them in silken sheets. Then around itself and the precious 

 bag it spun a silken tube or cell, at first left open at both ends, later 

 closed behind, or in front as well. In this compartive security it 

 spent most of its time, departing only for short hunting forays, 

 after which it dragged the prey back to be devoured at leisure. 

 Allegiance to silk was a moderate one. Dragline threads were put 

 down during the foraging; and the elementary subservience to these 

 lines still remains firmly fixed in the habits of the boldest and swift- 

 est of the vagabonds. Silk was used by the males for sperm webs, 

 and invariably by the females to make the flattened egg sacs, which 

 were composed of lower and upper sheets joined at the margins. 



