




The Spinner Family 
inch to two and one half inches. 
Often Mrs. Turret-builder sits at the 
top of her tower keeping a sharp out- 
look for prey or enemies. If an in- 
sect comes near, she darts from her 
position, grasps it, and carries it off to 
her tunnel before it knows what has 
happened. 
The ground-spiders we have met 
thus far all belong to one family called 
Lycoside. But there is another fam- 
ily of ground-spiders which in some 
respects is more ingenious than even 
the runners and turret-builders. ‘The 
best representatives of this family are 
the Tarantulas and Trap-door Spiders. 
In one particular these Spinners 
differ from all others. You remember 
that Mrs. Epeira’s poison fangs moved 
from side to side; that is also true of 
all the other Spinners you have seen. 
But the poison fangs of the Tarantula. 
and its relatives move up and down 
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