SPIDERS 



205 





abdomens, and emit threads of many feet in length in all directions into the air, in 

 order to pass along them and so escape ; and they do the same when perched on 

 the top of a stick standing in water. By emitting threads spiders are also enabled 

 to construct bridges between two distant objects, as, for instance, between two trees, 

 the web being suspended from the connecting threads. 



All European spiders belong to the group with two lungs and breathing-tubes, 

 or tracheae (Dipneumones), the other group (Tetrapneumones) having four lungs 

 and no tracheae. Many of them (Orbitelarice) make a wheel-shaped web, slide 

 down on a thread from their web when in danger, wrap up their prey before 

 carrying it away, and surround their eggs with a round or half-round cocoon. 

 The common cross - spider 

 (Epeim. diaderna), which sits 

 lurking for its prey in a ver- 

 tical web, is found in bushes, J? 

 gardens, and houses all over • ;: ' 

 Europe ; it is brownish red or 

 blackish in colour, and on the 

 back of the abdomen has 

 white or yellow spots of dif- 

 ferent sizes, arranged in the 

 form of a cross, from which 

 its name is derived. The legs 

 are marked with black rings. 

 The male is § of an inch in 

 length and the female half 

 as long again. The horned 

 cross-spider (E. cornuta), in- 

 habiting forests and gardens, 

 is rather smaller, black or 

 grey in colour, with pale 

 yellow rings on the legs. Its 

 leaf-shaped back has white 

 spots and edges, and on each 

 side of the abdomen is a con- 

 ical protuberance from which 

 the species takes its name. In making the web the first thread that is fixed 

 and strengthened is more or less horizontal. From this a short distance from 

 one of the ends the spider drops another which is fastened to some object below ; 

 climbing up this the spider fixes a third thread in a similar manner, and the 

 fourth thread is run along across the two vertical threads so as to form what 

 is practically a rectangle, from the sides of which the rest of the straight threads 

 radiate and are continued. Then the spiral is made which forms a scaffolding, 

 the threads of which are eaten up as they are replaced by the viscid spiral on 

 which the insects are caught. 



The spiders of the group Ret it elarice construct either a horizontal web between 



THE CROSS-SPIDER. 



