A few of our indigenous species may be mentioned as especially protected by their colour and conformation. _Tibellus oblongus_ is a straw-coloured spider with an elongated body, which lives among dry grass and rushes. When alarmed it clings closely to a dry stem, remains motionless, and escapes observation by its peculiarity of colour and shape. _Misumena vatia_, another of the Thomisidae or Crab-spiders, approximates in colour to the flowers in which it is accustomed to lurk on the watch for prey. It is of a variable hue, generally yellow or pink, and some observers believe that they have seen it gently waving its anterior legs in a way which made them easily mistaken for the stamens of the flower stirred by the breeze. Its purpose appears to be to deceive, not its enemies, but its victims. It seems to be partial to the blooms of the great mullein (_Verbascum thapsus_), and Pickard-Cambridge has more than once seen it seize and overcome a bee which had visited the flower in search of honey. He has also observed it in the blossoms of rose and furze bushes.[295] An Epeirid (_Tetragnatha extensa_) resembles _Tibellus_ in its method of concealing itself when alarmed. It also possesses an elongated abdomen, of a grey-green tint, which it closely applies to one of the twigs among which it has stretched its net, at the same time extending its four long anterior legs straight before it, and in this position it lies _perdu_, and is very easily overlooked. Another Orb-weaver, _Epeira cucurbitina_, is of an apple-green colour, which is admirably calculated to conceal it among the leaves which surround its snare. Most of our English Attidae, or Jumping-spiders, imitate closely the prevailing tone of the surfaces on which they are accustomed to hunt. This will be recognised in the familiar striped Wall-spider, _Salticus scenicus_, and we may also mention the grey _Attus pubescens_, which affects stone walls, and the speckled _Attus saltator_, which is hardly distinguishable from the sand which it searches for food. Examples may also be found among the Lycosidae or Wolf-spiders. Of the prettily variegated _Lycosa picta_, Pickard-Cambridge says: “Much variation exists in the extent of the different portions of the pattern and in their depth of colouring, these often taking their prevailing tint from the colour of the soil in which the spider is found. The best marked, richest coloured, and largest examples are found on sandy and gravelly heaths, where there is considerable depth and variety of colouring.... But on the uniformly tinted greyish-yellow sandhills between Poole and Christchurch I have found a dwarf, pale yellow-brown variety, with scarcely any dark markings on it at all, the legs being of a uniform hue, and wholly destitute of dark annuli.”[296]