110 NATURE STUDY 



wise or backwards with facility, but are readily distinguished by 

 their leaping and their big eyes from the true sidewise moving or 

 crab spiders described in the next paragraph. 



In cracks and crevices offences and bark and on plants, may 

 be found certain short, broad, flattish, usually greyish spiders, 

 which can run sidewise or backward more readily than forward. 

 These are known as Crab Spiders ( fig. 69 ). 

 Some of them lie in wait for their prey in 

 flower cups, and these are usually white and 

 parti-colored so as to harmonize with the 

 bright colors of the corolla. They are 

 rendered inconspicuous by this sort of color 

 mimicry, and small insects alight unspect- 

 ingly within reach of the waiting spider. 



Fig, 69. A Crab Spider. , 



The front two pairs of legs of these spiders 

 are longer than the other two pairs, and ' 'so bent that the spider 

 can use them when in a narrow crack." 



The running spiders, jumping spiders and crab spiders are 

 the most easily found and easily recognized of the spiders which 

 do not spin webs to catch prey. But there are other groups of 

 spiders characterized by this habit; among them those giant 

 spiders, the California Tarantulas or Mygales, and the trapdoor 

 spiders. The tarantulas and trapdoor spiders live in cylindrical 

 burrows in the ground, and they do their hunting chiefly at night. 

 They are not, thus, very commonly found, altho they are abund- 

 ant, in California. Perhaps the most certain way to obtain a live 

 specimen of the tarantula is to dig it out of its burrow. The bur- 

 row can be recognized, with some certainty, by the fact that they 

 are usually thinly lined internally with silk. They are open at 

 the surface of the ground, and are about an inch or an Inch 

 and a half in diameter. The live tarantula can be kept in a glass 

 jar or wooden box in the bottom of which several inches of soil 

 have been placed. It may be that the tarantula will build a 



