161 
OUR HOUSE SPIDERS. 
BY JOHN BLACK WALL, F.L.S. 
S O little attention has been bestowed on the natural 
history of the Araneidea in this kingdom that even the 
familiar term house spider is usually employed in so vague a 
manner as to convey no definite idea to the understanding. 
The cause of this neglect must be attributed to the numerous 
and peculiar difficulties inseparable from the study of this 
department of arachnology, and to the inveterate antipathy 
inherent in the minds of most persons towards the animals 
comprised in it. In the hope of inducing a feeling of interest 
where one of prejudice at present prevails, I shall proceed to 
offer a few remarks on the structure, habits, and economy of 
the spiders observed to inhabit the interior of our houses. 
TRIBE OCTONOCULINA. 
Family Drassidce. 
One species only belonging to this family, the Drassu-s 
sericeus of Sundevall, is of frequent occurrence in dwelling- 
houses, preferring such as are old and dilapidated ; it secretes 
itself behind window- shutters and curtains, in the crevices of 
walls, among bed-furniture, and in other obscure places, con- 
structing in those situations a short silken tube to serve as a 
domicile, with which it connects a lenticular cocoon of white 
silk of a compact texture, containing from fifty to sixty whitish 
spherical eggs, not agglutinated together. 
Drassus sericeus is decidedly nocturnal in its habits, rarely 
quitting its retreat in quest of the insects on which it preys before 
the commencement of twilight; it is an active spider, and is en- 
abled to run with celerity on the dry, vertical surfaces of polished 
bodies by the agency of a viscid secretion emitted from 
numerous hair-like papillae distributed on the inferior surface 
of its tarsi. Its spinners, which are rather prominent and 
cylindrical, do not become fully developed till the spider has 
undergone its final change of integument ; the two intermediate 
