The Common Spiders of the United StatesEmerton, J. H. (James Henry)
Science
The Common Spiders of the United States
Emerton, J. H. (James Henry)
Spiders -- United States
[Illustration: FIGS. 213, 214. Dolomedes tenebrosus.--213, female
enlarged twice. 214, front of head.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 215, 216. Ocyale undata.--215, female enlarged
twice. 216, front of head.]
[Illustration: FIG. 217. Nest of the young of Ocyale undata in a
wild-rose bush. One-third the real size.]
$Dolomedes tenebrosus.$--This is one of our largest spiders, spreading
its legs over four inches. The color is light and dark gray. The legs
are indistinctly marked with light and dark rings and have long dark
spines (fig. 213). The thorax is dark in the middle and lighter toward
the eyes. On each side are light bands that extend around under the eyes
and meet in front. The abdomen has three pairs of transverse dark
stripes, each with a light border on the hinder edge. The cephalothorax
is four-tenths of an inch long and three-tenths wide, half as wide in
front, and nearly straight on the front edge. It is rounded in the
middle, but not very high, and just behind the eyes is nearly flat. The
under side of the thorax and legs is light colored, without markings,
the abdomen a little darker. The abdomen is as long as the thorax,
widest across the middle, and a little pointed behind. The male has
longer legs and is more slender and strongly marked; under the fourth
femora near the end is a bunch of stiff hairs. The male palpi are long,
with large tarsi and palpal organs and a long hook on the outer side of
the tarsus. They live near water, on the ground or low bushes. The
female carries her cocoon in her mandibles and makes a large bunch of
silk in the bushes, in which the young live for some time after
hatching.
$Ocyale undata.$--When full grown over half an inch long, the thorax
quarter of an inch, and the first and fourth legs an inch long. The
thorax is almost as wide as long, and the head not much more than half
as wide (fig. 215). The abdomen is long and narrower than the thorax and
a little pointed behind. The color is a light brownish yellow, with a
wide darker and browner band on the middle of both thorax and abdomen.
This band is bordered by a white line a little curved in and out toward
the tail. In younger spiders the color is lighter and yellower; the
middle stripe has the edges more undulating, and in very young ones it
is serrated or even broken up into spots. The legs, which are plain in
adults, are sometimes marked with rings in the young. The front end of
the stripe is sometimes divided into two. These spiders live on bushes,
without any web, until they have young. In the latter part of summer the
females carry their flat cocoons under them, holding on with the
mandibles. When the young are about to hatch the female builds a mass of
web (fig. 217) three or four inches through, in which she leaves the
cocoon, and the young come out and live for a time together in the web.
[Illustration: FIGS. 218, 219. Oxyopes salticus.--218, female enlarged
six times. 219, front of head.]
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