By far the greater number of these nests is of the form which is termed funnel-webs, which consist of a concave sheet of silk, constituted of strong threads, crossed by finer ones, which the author spins with the long hind-spinnerets, swinging them from side to side, and laying down a band of threads at each stroke, the many hundred threads extending in all directions to the supporting spears of grass. The web is so close and tight that the footsteps of the spider can be distinctly heard by the attentive, listening ear as she runs hither and thither over its scarcely bending surface. At one side of the web is a tube, leading down among the grass-stems, which serves as a hiding-place for the owner of the web. Here, at the top, and just out of sight, the spider ordinarily stands, waiting for something to light upon the web, when she eagerly rushes out, seizing the prey unluckily caught and carrying it into her tube to eat. If too formidable an insect comes upon the web, she turns herself round, beating a precipitate retreat out of the lower end of her funnel and soon is lost beneath the mesh of enveloping and interlacing grasses. Where favorably located, these webs remain through the entire season, and are enlarged, as the spider grows, by additions on the outer edges, and are supported by threads running up into the neighboring plants. Sometimes the webs are built in close proximity to a stone partially imbedded in the earth, the bottom of the funnel opening slightly underneath the stone, which secures to the spider a convenient harbor in case of threatening danger. Agalenidæ, as our funnel-web weavers are called, are long-legged, brown spiders, in which the head part of the cephalo-thorax is higher than the thoracic part, and distinctly separated from it by grooves or marks at the sides. The eyes are usually in two rows, but in Agalena the middle eyes of both rows are much higher than the others. The feet have three claws, and the posterior pairs of spinnerets are two-jointed and usually longer than the others. _Agalena nævia_, the technical name of our Common Grass Spider, abounds in all parts of the United States, but its very commonness is the principal reason why it is so little known except by the trained naturalist, its very familiarity leading the average man and woman to look upon it with contempt. [Illustration: AGALENA AND HER FUNNEL-WEB. House-Fly, Caught in the Toils, Becomes a Victim.]