Agalena nævia.—This spider is known everywhere by its web, which it makes on grass, among stones and weeds, and in houses (figs.[221], [222]). It varies greatly in size and color. Large females may be three-quarters of an inch long, with legs measuring an inch and a quarter, while others may be full grown at half that size. In color some are pale yellow with gray markings, and others reddish brown with the markings almost black. Whatever the color, they are thickly covered with fine gray hairs. The cephalothorax has two longitudinal gray stripes and a black line along the edge on each side [(fig. 223)]. The head is high and a little darker in front. Both rows of eyes are strongly curved, with the middle eyes highest, so that the middle eyes of the lower row and the lateral of the upper row form a nearly straight line [(fig.224)]. The mandibles are stout, not much swelled in front, and covered with hair. The abdomen is gray or black at the sides and lighter brown in the middle, with two rows of white or light-colored spots. The upper spinnerets are more than twice as long as the others, and the terminal joint much longer than the basal. The legs are large and long, the fourth pair almost twice as long as the body. The legs are marked with dark rings at the ends of the joints and lighter rings in the middle of femur and tibia. On the under side the coxæ are light colored and the sternum dark, and there is a broad dark middle band on the abdomen from the hinder legs to the spinnerets. The males are as large as the females, with longer legs and smaller abdomen. The male palpi have a very large black tube coiled one and a half turns under the tarsus [(fig. 225)]. The web [(fig. 222)] is flat and shaped according to the surrounding objects to which it is fastened, with a tube at one side in which the spider hides. The eggs are laid in August and September in a flat cocoon, attached by one side in some sheltered place and covered with silk, often mixed with dirt. Most of the adult spiders die before winter, and females are often found dead on or near their cocoons. The young hatch in the winter and leave the cocoon early in the spring, and soon begin to build their webs among the short grass. The webs become more distinct when covered with dew, but, though too transparent to be seen at other times, they remain in the same places throughout the summer and are repaired and enlarged as the spider grows. If, however, the web should be destroyed, the spider is able in one day to make a new one as large as the old, but thin and transparent. The web contains many long threads crossing it from one side to the other and nearly parallel, and these are crossed in all directions by finer threads [(fig. 226)]. The long threads are spun from the lower spinnerets, the upper pair being held up over the back, out of the way. The fine threads are spun from the upper spinnerets, which are swung from side to side as the spider moves along. There is nothing adhesive about the web. It serves merely as a clearing where insects may alight to rest and the spider may have a good chance to run after them. Where the web is made under plants or rocks a great number of threads are carried upward from it, which may help in stopping insects [(fig. 227)], as they do in the webs of Linyphia. (See p. [135].)

Tegenaria derhamii.—This is a common species in barns and cellars, and has probably been imported from Europe, where it is even more common. The head is high and wide, as in T. medicinalis. The mandibles are less swelled in front and the eyes are closer together than in that species, and cover more than half the width of the head [(fig. 229)]. The cephalothorax is shorter and wider across the hinder half and the abdomen shorter than in medicinalis, and the legs are longer and more hairy. The colors are lighter and the hairs of the whole body longer. The female is two-fifths of an inch long. The cephalothorax is pale, with two gray stripes. The abdomen is marked with a series of gray spots, formed of a middle row more or less connected with two side rows; the front of the abdomen often pale, with the markings faint [(fig. 228)]. The legs are long, the first and fourth pairs nearly twice the length of the body. They are marked with faint gray rings at the ends and two in the middle of each joint. The palpi are long and slender in both sexes, and those of the male have the patella and tibia of about the same length and each nearly twice as long as wide. There are no processes on the patella, but two small teeth on the tibia near its end. The tarsus is small and narrow, not as long as the patella and tibia.