Dictyna frondea.—This resembles volupis and is likely to be mistaken for it. It is a little smaller, not over a tenth of an inch long, and there is less difference between the sexes. The legs are pale, and the cephalothorax light brown, lighter on the head. The abdomen is gray at the sides, not as red as in volupis, and the middle light stripe is narrower and not as bright yellow [(fig. 479)]. The sternum and under side of the abdomen are gray, as dark as the upper part and sides, while in volupis they are generally lighter. The males have the cephalothorax larger, and that and the legs a little brighter colored than in the female, and the abdomen darker. The mandibles are not as long as in the male volupis, and the ends of the male palpi are much smaller and the tibia longer and straighter than in volupis [(fig. 481)].

Dictyna cruciata.—About a tenth of an inch long, with the abdomen large and oval, as in muraria. The cephalothorax is light brown above and below, and the legs the same color, but still lighter. The abdomen is gray beneath and at the sides, and silvery white on the back, sometimes over the whole upper surface, but oftener in a stripe widened in the middle so as to form a white cross on a gray ground [(fig. 482)]. The males are darker colored, with the light spot on the abdomen smaller. The male palpi are short and slender, the ends large and rounded and carried close to the head [(fig. 483)].

Dictyna volucripes and muraria.—These two gray spiders are the common Dictynas on walls and fences and on the ends of grass and weeds, where they make webs shaped according to the places where they live, having in some part of the web a hole in which the spider usually hides [(fig. 473)]. Some allied species make nearly circular webs on walls, with the hole near the center, and gather so much dust as to appear like a spot of dirt [(fig. 471)]. Volucripes is about a sixth of an inch in length, and muraria an eighth of an inch. Volucripes is browner in color and more common on plants, and muraria is grayer and more common on fences. Both species are marked much alike. The cephalothorax is dark brown, partly covered with light gray hairs, some of which form roughly three stripes on the head. The abdomen is large and round, in some females nearly as wide as long. The front half has a middle dark spot of various shapes, and the hinder half two rows of spots connected in pairs with a middle line, forming a figure much like the markings of several species of Epeira (figs. [484], [487]). The legs are dark gray or brown, covered with fine hairs, the first pair not much longer than the body. In the females the mandibles are a little thickened in the middle. In the male they are elongated and turned forward at the ends and curved apart in the middle, and have a small tooth on the front near the base. The palpi of the males (figs. [485, 486]) are short, with the patella as wide as it is long and wider than the femur and tibia. The tarsus is half longer than wide and pointed at the end. In the tibia there is a little difference between the species that can be seen by looking at the palpi from the side; in volucripes there is a stout process at the base as long as the tibia itself and pointing upward at a right angle with it [(fig. 485)]; in muraria the corresponding process is short and turned forward, and the tibia seems proportionally longer [(fig. 486)]. The cribellum in both these species is large and can easily be seen in front of the other spinnerets. The calamistrum extends over half the length of the fourth metatarsus, which in volucripes is slightly curved.