38 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



this they had hatched, as my examination showed. Bringing out 

 my camera, I obtained a tine photograph of this specimen as it 

 ran over a little rocky ledge, and a copy of this is offered here to 

 show the reader exactly how she looked. This species belongs 

 to the family Lycosidce, and is common in Maryland and other 

 localities of Eastern United States. In certain parts of the trop- 

 ics there are spiders of great size, and these species spin a web of 

 no little strength; strong enough, indeed, to entangle small birds 

 that have unwittingly flown against its meshes. We are all 

 familiar, of course, with the peculiar cloth-like web built usually 

 in corners and elsewhere, by the common house-spider, and how 

 he runs out from the funnel-shaped angle of it, to capture insects 

 that may alight upon its urface. All sorts of "cobwebs" consti- 

 tute other weavings of these tireless spinners, and there is an- 

 other family of these insects that are divers by nature. They 

 weave remarkable little dome-shaped domiciles under water, and 

 into these they dive with their captured victims. All spiders 

 are aerial respirers, so that these forms have a way of tilling their 

 subaqueous structures with air, by carrying down globules of it 

 entangled in the longest hairs of their highly pubescent bodies. 



Dr. Claus, of Vienna, tells us that all spiders " are predacious, 

 and suck the juices of other insects; nevertheless, the manner in 

 which they get possession of their prey varies much, and often 

 indicates the possession of highly developed instincts. The so- 

 called vagrant spiders do not, as a rule, form nets to catch their 

 prey, but use the secretion of the spinning glands only to line 

 their hiding-places, and to make their ovisacs. They catch their 

 prey either by running after it, or by springing on it. Most 

 spiders rest in the daytime, and go out for prey in the dusk or in 

 the night-time. Many vagrant spiders, however, hunt in the day- 

 time, even when the sun is shining." There is another very re- 

 markable thing about the Doloiitcdes shown in my illustration. 

 and it is that the females are larger than the males, and more 

 powerful. Other species may occupy their webs near each other 

 in peace, or even temporarily a web in common, but this is by no 

 means always the case, for at other times the female will lie in 

 ambush for her partner and kill and devour him with quite as 

 much relish as she does other insects. Not only this, but she 

 will accomplish the same fiendish purpose while he is in the very 

 act of fulfilling his duties toward her as her mate, or immedi- 

 ately thereafter. The male is well aware of this dangerous trait 



