506 ERGATIS BENIONA. 



The Water Spider is a truly active creature, and its rapid movements can be watched by 

 means of placing one of these Arachnida in a vessel nearly filled with water. If possible, 

 some water plant, such as the vallisneria, or anacharis, should be also placed in the vessel. 

 Here the spider will soon construct its web, and exhibit its curious habits. It must be well 

 supplied with flies and other insects thrown into the water. It will pounce on them, carry 

 them to its house, and there eat them. 



It is a tolerably common species, being especially fond of inhabiting quiet and rather deep 

 ditches, where it is well sheltered, and the stream is not rapid enough to endanger the security 

 of its domicile. It is necessary that the water plants to which the nest is fixed should be 

 sufficiently firm to prevent the nest from being swayed on one side, as, in that case, the air 

 would escape, and the water make its entrance. I have often watched its active movements 

 through the water. Whenever it swims, it always keeps its head downwards, just as is the 

 case with a human diver, and it urges itself through the water with quick smart strides of its 

 hairy legs. 



The limbs and cephalo-thorax of this species are brown, with a slight tinge of red ; and the 

 abdomen is brown, but washed with green. It is densely covered with hairs. On the middle 

 of the upper surface of the abdomen are found round spots arranged in a square. The male is 

 rather larger than the female, and his legs are larger in proportion. He may, however, be 

 distinguished by the large mandibles and longer palpi. 



WE now come to the family of the Ciniflonidse. 



All these spiders are fond of residing in crevices in rocks, walls, and stones, or under 

 leaves, or sheltered by old projecting bark ; and near their hiding-place they weave nets of a 

 most elaborate structure, not flat, like those of the common garden-spider, but inclosing spaces 

 of considerable size in comparison with the small dimensions of their architects. These webs 

 are woven chiefly by means of a peculiar apparatus on the hinder legs, consisting of two rows 

 of parallel and movable spines. The web is most intricate in its arrangements, and connected 

 with the hiding-place of the spider by means of a silken tunnel of variable length, through 

 which the creature darts when it feels the vibration of an insect in its web, and to the bottom 

 of which it retreats if it apprehends danger. Sometimes the spider makes more than one of 

 these tubes. 



Several species of Ciniflo are very plentiful, and may be found hidden in their dark silken 

 caverns even in houses. Cellars often contain them, and they frequently swarm in the belfries 

 of old churches. They are extremely ferocious, and mostly seem to be hungry, killing fly 

 after fly with untiring assiduity. 



The Ciniflo ferox is moderately plentiful, and may be found in old buildings, especially 

 in the dark crevices behind the windows, and under stones. Its length is a little under 

 half an inch. The cephalo-thorax is heart-shaped, of a pale yellowish-brown, and clothed 

 thinly with long black hairs. The abdomen is dark brown, and is variegated with buff 

 markings. 



A small, but interesting spider, termed Ergatis benigna, is not unfrequent upon heaths 

 and commons, and makes an irregular web at the tips of the gorse and heather. This web 

 passes from one twig to several others, and is studded with the bodies of the captured prey. 

 Within the web the female spider places her cocoons, which are two or three in number, dish- 

 shaped, and are fastened to the stems of the plants upon which the web is built. There are 

 about thirty eggs in each cocoon, and they may mostly be found about June. 



The color of the female is very dark brown, upon which is described a bold pattern of 

 buff. The male is smaller, darker, and the markings on the body are of a duller hue. Pierce 

 as is this little creature in its own way, it often falls a victim to the voracious asilidae, or 

 hornet-flies, which completely reverse the usual order of things, and instead of being devoured 

 by the spider, act the part of its destroyers. The soft skin of this spider is easily pierced by 

 the jaw-lancets of the harvest-fly, and, owing to this structure, the poor little spider learns 

 practically the discomfort of being eaten. 



