Epeira trivittata and domiciliorum.—These spiders, which may be considered varieties of one species, are among the most common Epeiridæ, at least in the northern part of the country, the smaller variety, trivittata, quarter of an inch long, living in small bushes and marsh grass, and the larger variety in trees and fences. The abdomen is only a little longer than wide and is proportionally smaller than in insularis and thaddeus. The legs are long and slender, the first pair being nearly twice as long as the body. The color is most commonly light yellow, with brown markings. Sometimes the abdomen is thickly spotted with red, especially toward the latter part of the summer, and domiciliorum has usually gray and even black markings. The cephalothorax has three dark stripes not very sharply defined, and the legs have brown or gray rings at the ends of the joints. The back of the abdomen has a row of light spots in the middle, sometimes united into a stripe, and on each side of this a row of dark spots nearly surrounded by lighter color. The sternum is bright yellow in the middle, and the under side of the abdomen has a dark center and two or three pairs of yellow spots.

The males are usually smaller than the females, but resemble them in color and markings. On the under side of each femur is a single row of long spines. The tibia of the second legs is curved more in the small than in the large variety and has a row of strong spines on the inner side.

The webs are made usually just before dark, and the spider stands in them more in the night than during the daytime. Sometimes they make a thread from the center of the web to the nest, but this is not a regular habit, as it is with insularis [(fig. 397)].

Very young spiders make proportionally larger nests, often on the ends of grasses, where their round webs are destroyed every day by the wind. Some of them mature as early as June, and others, especially of the domiciliorum variety, as late as August.

Epeira pratensis.—This is the same size and color as Epeira trivittata, and lives, like that species, in grass and low bushes. The cephalothorax and abdomen are both slightly longer than in trivittata, and the color is more uniform. The cephalothorax is dull yellow, with a middle and two lateral stripes, but these are often absent in light specimens. The legs are colored like the cephalothorax, sometimes a little darker at the ends of the joints. The abdomen has a middle dark stripe, at the sides of which are two narrow bright yellow lines, which are sometimes bordered with red. Outside of the middle stripes are six pairs of black spots partly surrounded by yellow. On the under side the sternum has a yellow stripe in the middle, and the abdomen two curved yellow marks, which may be broken into spots. In the male the body is longer and narrower than in the female and longer than the male trivittata, and the tibiæ of the second legs are a little thickened and curved as in trivittata.