CHAPTER VII 



SPIDERS 



ABOUT five hundred different species of spiders are known to occur 

 in this country. As is to be expected among so large a number, 

 there is considerable diversity in their habits and modes of life. 

 The best known spin silken snares, webs, in which to entangle the 

 flies and other insects on whose juices they subsist. The forms 

 of the webs are very various, but remarkably constant in their 

 main features for any particular species. Some spiders spin 

 beautiful wheel-shaped webs, others arrange their snares in 

 horizontal sheets or form a tangled maze of threads ; others again 

 construct silken tubes in holes in the earth, crevices or corners, 

 and spread out a diffuse net horizontally in front of the entrance. 

 There are, however, several ways by which spiders catch their 

 prey without the use of a snare : some species of Lycosa (wolf- 

 spiders) run their victims down in fair, open chase, while others 

 of the same genus pursue their prey upon the surface of water, 

 and can tolerate with impunity a lengthy submersion. Others 

 again search carefully for the animals on which they feed, and, 

 having descried their quarry, stop short and leap upon it. The 

 most familiar examples of this method of capture are the jump- 

 ing spiders (family Salticidcz), among which one, Epiblemum 

 scenicum, is very common on walls, in the cracks and crevices 

 of which it dwells. This is a small spider, nearly black and 

 white in colouring ; and, like most of the Salticidce, has the four 

 anterior eyes of very large size, as is to be expected in an animal 

 which relies upon vision for the discovery of its food. The prey 

 consists of flies and other small insects which frequently settle 

 upon walls and there bask in the sunshine ; and it is only in bright 

 weather that the spiders go a-hunting. At the moment of leaping 

 upon the prey the spider fastens down on to the surface of the 

 wall the silken thread which is always trailed behind the body 



