THE HUNTING SPIDERS 231 



the wolf spiders in form, being covered with dense coats of tawny 

 or brownish hair. Several species occur in our southern states. 

 Lutica is the only genus of the family Zodariidae found within the 

 United States. Relic of a group now largely limited to the tropics, 

 it occurs only on the Channel Islands off the coast of southern 

 California, and on the adjacent mainland. It is noted for the length 

 of the front spinnerets, and for the great reduction in size of the 

 posterior pairs, which are small, but not lost as has been reported. 

 In spite of its name, Storena americana, erroneously attributed to 

 Georgia, is a foreigner and belongs to a group with headquarters in 

 the Australian region. Near relatives are the spiders of the genus 

 Homalonychus, sluggish, enigmatic vagrants with smooth claws 

 that sit under stones in the Southwest and in adjacent Mexico; they 

 are the only members of the family Homalonychidae. 



THE PRIMITIVE HUNTERS AND WEAVERS 



There are various spiders whose features mark them as represen- 

 tative of the ancestral stocks from which the higher hunting types on 

 the one hand, and the aerial web spinners on the other, are thought 

 to have sprung. Some of these primitives are active vagrants that 

 compete with the running ground spiders whom they resemble in 

 general appearance and action. Others are wanderers that stalk over 

 the terrain in deliberate fashion, groping with their front legs as 

 they hunt. Most of them retire to some sort of base during the day, 

 a silken tube or a padded corner, but few use silk with proficiency 

 or place much reliance on it as a means of capturing prey (the 

 curious warning threads of Ariadna and Segestria, and the tangled 

 maze of Diguetia, are extraordinary web types). All of them are 

 short-sighted, and because they are active mostly at night, sight 

 plays a small role in their hunting. Almost without exception they 

 are six-eyed the anterior median pair having been lost very early 

 in their history and the eyes, usually placed far forward, are not 

 notable for size. In two families, the Plectreuridae and Caponiidae, 

 all eight eyes may be present; at the other end of the scale, most 

 caponiids have lost all but the anterior median pair. 



The most obvious generalized feature of this whole group is the 

 retention of reproductive organs that are but little advanced beyond 

 those of the mygalomorph spiders. The genital bulb of the male 

 palpus is usually a simple vessel drawn out to a point, much like a 

 syringe, and there is 'scarcely any development of the accessory 



