$Epeira parvula.$--A common spider all over the country, with the abdomen wide in front and bluntly pointed behind, gray and brown colors and a great variety of markings. The length is quarter to three-eighths of an inch, with the abdomen two-thirds as long and as wide across the front. The abdomen is as high behind as it is in front, and the pointed end is sometimes turned a little upward, as it is in _conica_. The front of the head is narrow, not more than half as wide as the back of the thorax. The front legs are half longer than the body. The cephalothorax is gray, darker at the sides, and sometimes with a few black spots. The legs are irregularly marked with rings and spots, and the femora are dark toward the end. The abdomen is commonly gray, with a tapering scalloped middle stripe and a distinct dark middle spot and two large light spots at the front end (fig. 416). Sometimes there is a middle narrow dark stripe the whole length of the abdomen (fig. 418), and sometimes all the middle is white or light yellow. The males have the head a little narrower and more pointed, the legs longer, and the second tibia slightly thickened, but not curved. The webs are in low bushes. [Illustration: FIG. 419. Epeira stellata, enlarged four times.] [Illustration: FIG. 420. Unfinished web of Epeira stellata with the spider hanging near the center. Half the real size.] $Epeira stellata.$--A brown spider, a quarter to a third of an inch long and nearly as broad, with pointed humps around the abdomen. The cephalothorax is wide in front, and the lateral eyes are on the outer sharp corners. The legs are short and usually drawn up and partly concealed under the abdomen. The abdomen has a sharp point in front that extends over the cephalothorax as far as the base of the first legs, and a large point behind, with a smaller one under it. At the sides are five pairs of points, and over the first of these another pair a little higher on the back. The cephalothorax is brown, lighter in the middle and darker at the sides, and covered with short gray hairs. The abdomen is marked with lighter and darker spots of brown, the front part generally dark with a very light middle spot, and the hinder half showing traces of the usual middle stripe of Epeira. The legs have dark rings at the ends and middle of the joints. It lives among low bushes a foot or two from the ground all over the country. This spider, as well as several other species, often leaves a web unfinished with the inner spiral still covering a large part of it, as in fig. 420. [Illustration: FIGS. 421, 422, 423. Epeira verrucosa.--421, female enlarged twice. 422, under side of female. 423, male enlarged twice.]