This species often makes its web in marsh grass, which it draws away and fastens with silk [(fig. 457)]. As the surrounding grass becomes long and weak, it sometimes falls away, leaving the web in a basket of grass fastened firmly enough together to remain standing.

THE GENUS TETRAGNATHA

The Tetragnathas are slender, usually straw-colored spiders, living in their webs among the long grass in meadows and near water. The legs are slender, the cephalothorax narrow, and the abdomen long and cylindrical. The mandibles are large in both sexes, and in the males are very long and furnished with long teeth at the end and along the inner margin. When pairing, the male and female hold each other by the ends of the mandibles. The eyes are in two rows nearly equal and parallel, and the distance between the lateral pairs varies in different species. The palpi are long and slender in both sexes, and in the males their proportions differ according to the species. The legs are also long and slender, and vary in length from grallator, where the female has the first legs ten times as long as the cephalothorax, to laboriosa, in which they are seven times as long. The webs are generally inclined and may be nearly horizontal or nearly vertical, according to the place where they are made [(fig. 459)]. The inner spiral is small and has a hole in the middle [(fig. 460)]. The spider stands in the web with the legs extended forward and backward close to each other, except at the ends, where they are turned outward [(fig. 459)]. On account of their similar size and color, the species look at first sight much alike, but there are differences in the arrangement of the lateral eyes and the length of the legs, palpi, and mandibles.