506 
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ERGATIS BENIGN A. 
The Water Spider is a truly active creature, and its rapid movements can be watched by 
means of placing one of these Arachnida in a vessel nearly filled with water. If possible, 
some water plant, such as the vallisneria, or anacharis, should be also placed in the vessel. 
Here the spider will soon construct its web, and exhibit its curious habits. It must be well 
supplied with flies and other insects thrown into the water. It will pounce on them, carry 
them to its house, and there eat them. 
It is a tolerably common species, being especially fond of inhabiting quiet and rather deep 
ditches, where it is well sheltered, and the stream is not rapid enough to endanger the security 
of its domicile. It is necessary that the water plants to which the nest is fixed should be 
sufficiently firm to prevent the nest from being swayed on one side, as, in that case, the air 
would escape, and the water make its entrance. I have often watched its active movements 
through the water. Whenever it swims, it always keeps its head downwards, just as is the 
case with a human diver, and it urges itself through the water with quick smart strides of its 
hairy legs. 
The limbs and cephalo-thorax of this species are brown, with a slight tinge of red ; and the 
abdomen is brown, but washed with green. It is densely covered with hairs. On the middle 
of the upx>er surface of the abdomen are found round spots arranged in a square. The male is 
rather larger than the female, and his legs are larger in proportion. He may, however, be 
distinguished by the large mandibles and longer palpi. 
We now come to the family of the Ciniflonidm. 
All these spiders are fond of residing in crevices in rocks, walls, and stones, or under 
leaves, or sheltered by old projecting bark ; and near their hiding-place they weave nets of a 
most elaborate structure, not flat, like those of the common garden-spider, but inclosing spaces 
of considerable size in comparison with the small dimensions of their architects. These webs 
are woven chiefly by means of a peculiar apparatus on the hinder legs, consisting of two rows 
of parallel and movable spines. The web is most intricate in its arrangements, and connected 
with the hiding-place of the spider by means of a silken tunnel of variable length, through 
which the creature darts when it feels the vibration of an insect in its web, and to the bottom 
of which it retreats if it apprehends danger. Sometimes the spider makes more than one of 
these tubes. 
Several species of Ciniflo are very plentiful, and may be found hidden in their dark silken 
caverns even in houses. Cellars often contain them, and they frequently swarm in the belfries 
of old churches. They are extremely ferocious, and mostly seem to be hungry, killing fly 
after fly with untiring assiduity. 
The . Qinijlo ferox is moderately plentiful, and may be found in old buildings, especially . 
in the dark crevices behind the windows, and under stones. Its length is a little under 
half an inch. The cephalo-thorax is heart-shaped, of a pale yellowish-brown, and clothed 
thinly with long black hairs. The abdomen is dark brown, and is variegated with buff 
markings. 
A small, but interesting spider, termed Ergatis benigna , is not unfrequent upon heaths 
and commons, and makes an irregular web at the tips of the gorse and heather. This web 
passes from one twig to several others, and is studded with the bodies of the captured prey. 
Within the web the female spider places her cocoons, which are two or three in number, dish- 
shaped, and are fastened to the stems of the plants upon which the web is built. There are 
about thirty eggs in each cocoon, and they may mostly be found about June. 
The color of the female is very dark brown, upon which is described a bold pattern of 
buff. The male is smaller, darker, and the markings on the body are of a duller hue. Fierce 
as is this little creature in its own way, it often falls a victim to the voracious asilidse, or 
hornet-flies, which completely reverse the usual order of things, and instead of being devoured 
by the spider, act the part of its destroyers. The soft skin of this spider is easily pierced by 
the jaw-lancets of the harvest-fly, and, owing to this structure, the poor little spider learns 
practically the discomfort of being eaten. 
