THE GENUS PHILODROMUS

In these spiders there is less difference in length between the front and hind legs than in Misumena or Xysticus. The legs are long and slender, the second pair longest, and the body is small and flat, and the abdomen pointed behind. The colors are brown and gray, and the whole body is often covered with fine flattened hairs that in the males are iridescent. Philodromus vulgaris lives usually on houses and fences, but the other species on plants.

Philodromus vulgaris.—About quarter of an inch long, the legs of the female spreading over an inch and those of the male an inch and a quarter (figs. [101, 102)]. They often stand with all the legs extended sidewise, flat against a wall or fence which they closely resemble in color. When freshly molted they are covered with fine gray hairs of the color of weathered boards, that obscure most of the markings. Older spiders or those wet with alcohol are covered with small gray spots forming a stripe in the middle of the front of the abdomen and a herringbone pattern on the hinder half. The edges of the back of the abdomen are dark and form a sharp line against the light color of the under surface. The thorax is darker in the middle and at the sides in irregular spots of gray. The legs are spotted and darker toward the ends of the joints. The under side of body and legs is light colored.

Philodromus ornatus.—This is a small species about one-eighth of an inch long. The female is very distinctly marked with dark brown on a white ground [(fig. 105)]. The middle of the thorax is white and the sides brown nearly to the edge. The abdomen is white, with a distinct brown band on each side from the front more than half its length backward. Sometimes there is also an indistinct brownish pattern in the middle, but this is usually absent in adults, and the middle is entirely white. Under the abdomen the lateral brown bands extend backward and meet around the spinnerets. The abdomen is wider than in most species,—nearly as wide as it is long across the hinder half. The male is very differently colored. The legs and thorax are orange brown, darker at the sides of the thorax and toward the ends of the legs. The abdomen is darker brown and strongly iridescent with red and green in a bright light. In alcohol it shows indistinctly the same markings as the female. The legs are longer and the abdomen narrower, as in males of other species.