It does not spin a web, but lives in a silk-lined hole six or eight inches deep, which it digs in the ground, and around the entrance to which, out of sticks and grass, it builds a turret or watch-tower, from which it can see its prey more readily than from the ground. These spider holes are common in the meadows of Maryland.
In form and color the wolf-spider resembles the famous tarantula of southern Europe, the bite of which was supposed to cause the tarantella, or dancing madness; but it is as harmless as a butterfly, and indeed, Doctor Comstock, who is the authority on spiders, believes that no spiders in the Northern states are poisonous to man.
THE CAST OFF OUTER SKELETON OF A WOLF-SPIDER
(Lycosa punctulata, Hentz)
This photograph is of the outer skeleton or shell of a small wolf-spider which I found clinging to the focusing cloth of my camera after it had been lying on the grass.
With us the bony skeleton is internal and grows as we grow. With spiders the skeleton is a tough, leathery structure, which cannot change; so that the young, rapidly growing spider soon finds his shell too tight for him, and, like a crab, he bursts his shell and pulls his soft body from each leg and complicated cavity.
This process seems marvelous, but is really comparatively simple when we realize that before the old shell is cast off it is loosened from the new skin by the moulting fluid which is excreted from glands opening through this new skin.