$Hyptiotes cavatus.$--This peculiar spider resembles in shape and color the end of one of the dead pine branches among which it lives. It is a sixth of an inch long. The cephalothorax is as wide as long, highest in the middle, and hollowed behind under the abdomen. The abdomen is oval, thickest behind, and flattened in front, and has on the back four pairs of slight elevations, on which are a few stiff hairs (fig. 498). The legs are short and thickest in the middle, tapering toward the claws. The hind metatarsi are curved in at the calamistrum (fig. 499). The eyes are arranged as in Uloborus, but are farther apart and farther back on the cephalothorax. The male is half as large as the female, the abdomen smaller, and the humps lower. [Illustration: FIG. 500. Webs of Hyptiotes in the top of a bush. Half the real size.] The web (fig. 500) consists of four rays crossed by a dozen or more threads. The point where the rays meet is attached to a thread which extends to the spider's roost, usually the end of a twig. Here it holds on by the hind feet and draws the thread tight with the fore feet. When an insect strikes the web the spider lets go with the hind feet and is jerked forward by the contraction of the web, and slides along toward its center, where it finds the prey and takes it out of the web to its perch. The making of this web has been described by Wilder in the _Popular Science Monthly_ in 1875. The cross threads are made separately, beginning with the longest. They are begun on the upper ray, the spider walking toward the center, combing out the threads with its hind legs, until it reaches a point where it can cross to the next. It is found all over the country, usually in the pine woods. [Illustration: FIG. 501. Filistata hibernalis, enlarged twice.] $Filistata hibernalis.$--One of the most common house spiders in the southern states, making webs in corners and on walls and fences (fig. 501). The body is about half an inch long, but the legs are so long and stout that it appears much larger. The first leg, which is the longest, is about twice the length of the body. The palpi are as long as the cephalothorax and thicker than in most spiders. The maxillæ are inclined toward each other so that they meet in front of the labium. The cephalothorax is flat and narrowed in front between the palpi, and the mandibles are small. The eyes are in one group, close together. The color is dark gray, without any markings, and the whole body is covered with fine short hairs. The calamistrum is very short, and near the base of the fourth metatarsus, where it can easily be seen. The web is like that of Dictyna, radiating irregularly from the spider's hiding place, and when this is on a flat wall forms sometimes a circle a foot or more in diameter, which becomes filled with dust and is enlarged and thickened as the spider grows. INDEX Abdomen, the posterior half of the body, x. Acrosoma, 188. mitrata, 189. rugosa, 189. spinea, 190.