lh CC rrr t—S 
HORIZONTAL SNARES AND DOMED ORBS. 155 
continent, are Tetragnatha extensa and T. grallator. The former species 
has been supposed to be an importation from Europe. It is impossible, of 
course, to determine whether this is so or not, for the species is 
so widely distributed, over the greater part of the continent in 
fact, that the probabilities are that its life in North America 
antedates the period of European communication. My collections and 
specimens range from Canada, Connecticut, 
and Massachusetts to Florida, on the east- 
ern shore; to Texas on the south and 
southwest; and on the Pacific coast as far 
northward as Vancouver Island, and south- 
ward to San Diego, at the extreme border 
of California, Emerton has collected it on j., sug Eivicseriaitig, welandibie ino vite 
the White Mountains of New England and 
along the seaboard, and Dr. Marx has specimens ranging from Fort Simms, 
Labrador, to Florida, and westward and northwest through Kan- 
sas, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. As the species is widely 
distributed throughout the continent of Europe, and is probably 
found in Asia as well, it is easy to see that it might have been transported 
without the aid of*human ships, simply by the agency of the winds, either 
from America to Europe, or from Europe to America. The original centre 
of the species, if one is to suppose an original centre at all, cannot, there- 
fore, be positively determined. It is a spider of delicate greenish and yel- 
low colors, and appears to be rather delicately organized, notwithstanding 
the formidable jaws which characterize it in common with its congeners, 
and to which its generic name is due. (Fig. 147.) Nevertheless, it has 
_ been able to find and hold a habitat amid the most 
diverse climatic extremes, and in establishing itself has 
crossed continents, lofty mountain ranges, and oceans. 
Tetragnatha extensa is a spider which when once seen 
cannot easily be mistaken for another. It well deserves 
its name of “extensa,” or the extended spider, for its 
abdomen is in the shape of a rather narrow cylinder, is 
greatly extended, as compared with the cephalothorax, 
and it has the habit of stretching its front legs forward, 
Fic. 147, 'Thejaws ana its hind legs backward until, together with the long body, 
mouth parts of Tet- the entire spider is drawn out into a straight band and 
cea forms a peculiar vision, which the obseryer is apt to bear 
in mind. The colors of Extensa vary a good deal, but for the most 
part the cephalothorax is pale white and yellowish. The abdomen is 
delicate yellow, tinted with shades of green, and has a fine branching 
black line running down the middle of the dorsum. The sides are finely 
reticulated, and the under part has a dark band down the middle with 
green on each side. 
Tetrag- 
natha. 
Distri- 
bution. 
