FAMILY SALTICIDES. 



HIS family includes those spiders popularly known as 

 " jumping spidors." They spin no snare, but, hunt- 

 ing about for their prey, leap suddenly upon it, with 

 unerring aim, and often from a (comparatively) considerable 

 distance. 



They may bo easily known by their more or less quadrate, and 

 frequently massive, cephalo-thorax, which is usually longer than 

 broad ; and on the fore-half of which the eyes, which are of vory 

 unequal size, and of various colours, are placed in a largo quad- 

 rangle The four anterior oyos form the front of the quadrangle 

 and are usually of very large size, the two next are very minute, 

 and form an intermediate transverse row ; the two posterior ones 

 are of medium sizo, and form the hinder side of tho quadrangle. 

 The legs are usually of moderate length, though varying 

 considerably in their relative length in different genera and 

 species, but always terminating with two claws, beneath which 

 there is frequently a compact claw-tuft, or short scopula. 



The maxillae are straight, enlarged at the base, and rounded 

 at the extremity ; the labium is of an oval form, obtuse at the 

 apex. 



This is probably the largest (in respect to tho number of species) 

 of all tho various spider-families. Nearly, if not quite, eleven 

 hundred species have been described from all parts of the world. 

 The number of Europoan species is vory large also ; those of 

 Franco (which, probably, includo most of those indigenous to 

 Europe — excepting, perhaps, its extreme eastern parts) amount 

 to nearly one hundred and fifty. The number as yet recorded 

 in Great Britain is thirty-one, distributed among thirteen genora; 



