LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066218614

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       INTRODUCTION

       THE DRASSIDÆ

       THE GENUS CLUBIONA

       THE DYSDERIDÆ

       THE THOMISIDÆ

       THE GENUS MISUMENA

       THE GENUS XYSTICUS

       THE GENUS PHILODROMUS

       THE ATTIDÆ

       THE LYCOSIDÆ

       THE GENUS LYCOSA

       THE GENUS PARDOSA

       THE AGALENIDÆ

       THE THERIDIDÆ

       THE GENUS THERIDIUM

       THE GENUS STEATODA

       THE LINYPHIADÆ

       THE GENUS LINYPHIA

       THE GENUS ERIGONE

       THE EPEIRIDÆ

       THE THREE SPECIES OF THE GENUS ZILLA

       THE GENUS ACROSOMA

       THE GENUS TETRAGNATHA

       THE CINIFLONIDÆ, OR CRIBELLATA

       THE GENUS DICTYNA

       INDEX

PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      There are few books on the American spiders, and these are either large and expensive works or else special papers published by scientific societies, and so little known to the public. Since publishing my papers on the New England and Canadian spiders in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy from 1882 to 1894, I have had frequent calls for a smaller and simpler book to meet the wants of readers who, without making a special study of the subject, want to know a little about spiders in general and especially those species that they often meet with. It is hoped this book will answer the purpose and help to lessen the prejudice against spiders, and lead to a more general acquaintance with them, like the popular knowledge of birds and butterflies. The characters used in the descriptions are, as far as possible, those that can be seen without microscopic examination and without much experience in the handling of small animals. The illustrations, which show the form and markings of every species, are from my own drawings and photographs, a large part of them made new for this book.

      J. H. EMERTON.

      April, 1902.

INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

      This book is designed to make the reader acquainted with the common spiders most likely to be found over a large part of the United States as far south as Georgia and as far west as the Rocky Mountains. Local collections show that in the neighborhood of any city in the country there are at least three or four hundred species of spiders; but few such collections have been made, and it is not yet possible to tell all the kinds of spiders that live in any particular place, or how far any species extends over the country. The species which are here described and figured are all of them well known and have been described in other books. Rare and doubtful species are omitted, though some of these may in time prove to be among the most common. A large number of spiders are too small to be easily seen, and most of these are omitted, only a few representative species being described. Spiders have, unfortunately, no common names, except such indefinite ones as "the garden spider," "the black spider," "the jumping spider," and the like. Even "tarantula" has become only a nickname for any large spider. The names of spiders, like those of other animals, have been given to them independently by different persons, so that many of them have more than one name, and the more common the spider the larger the number of names. In this book only one name is usually given to each species, and the name used is one that has been published with a description of the species in some other well-known book. Readers who are interested in the names of species and in comparing the classifications of different naturalists are referred to a "Catalogue of the Described Araneæ Of Temperate North America," by George Marx, in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, 1890, which is a useful index to what has been published on American spiders.

      The front half of a spider's body, called the cephalothorax, contains in one piece the head and thorax, the only outward division between them being shallow grooves from the middle of the back to the front legs. In the middle of the cephalothorax is usually a groove or depression, under which, inside, is a muscle that moves the sucking apparatus by which food is drawn into the mouth. At the sides of the thoracic part are four pairs of legs, and on the head part are a pair of palpi and a pair of mandibles. The legs have seven joints: (1) the coxa, the thick basal joint, having little motion; (2) the trochanter, a short joint moving very freely on the end of the coxa; (3) the femur, the largest joint of the leg, moving with the trochanter in all directions; (4) the patella, moving up and down on the end of the femur; (5) the tibia, joined

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