270 MANUAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



The first, or Sedentaries, are elongated, with slender 

 legs, and construct large nets, in the middle of which 

 they remain motionless, or retire to a side avenue to 

 watch the unfortunates that fall into their snares. 

 Some of these spin geometric webs, composed of con- 

 centric circles crossed by rays which unite in a com- 

 mon centre, and which are suspended vertically. The 

 Spiders which construct these kinds of webs are 

 of brilliant colours, and of singular forms, as Epei- 

 ra, Gasteracantha, Tetragnatha, and Uloborus ; 

 others among them construct large irregular nets of 

 threads crossing each other in all directions, these 

 are formed by little but very industrious spinners, 

 such as Theridion and Episinus ; some, again, com- 

 pose horizontal toils of a closely-woven fabric in 

 the angles of walls and under stones, and furnished 

 with a tubular passage formed of the same material, 

 in which they lie and watch, such as Tegenaria, 

 Agelenar and Nyssus; many again, form toils of 

 compact meshes, suspended horizontally betweeen 

 plants, but without any tubular passages, and with 

 the webs more open and transparent, these cloth- 

 weavers principally compose the genus Linyphia. 



The Vagabonds, on the other hand, lead a wan- 

 dering and desultory kind of life, and do , not spin 

 regular webs ; some of them, however, throw out 

 long single threads to entangle the feet of their vic- 

 tims, while they themselves watch vigilantly in the 

 neighbourhood to take advantage, — such are the 

 Drassi, the Dysderce, and the Dolomedes. Others, 

 of these Vagabonds, on the contrary, are hunting 



