Most of the common species belong to the genus Epeira and its allies, having rounded abdomens and stout legs, some of them with humps and spines and peculiar angular forms of the abdomen. The colors are often bright, and those of the abdomen arranged in a triangular or leaf-shaped pattern. In Meta (p. 190) and Argyroepeira (p. 191) the abdomen is more elongated and the form and marking more like Linyphia. In Tetragnatha (p. 201) the whole body is long and slender, the abdomen several times as long as the cephalothorax, and the maxillæ and mandibles, especially in the males, much elongated. The colors are more uniform and the markings faint, usually light gray, yellow, or green, like the plants among which they live. The round webs of the Epeiridæ consist of a number of radiating lines, varying in different species from a dozen to seventy, crossed by two spirals,--an inner spiral that begins in the center and winds outward, and an outer spiral that begins at the edge of the web and winds inward. The inner spiral is made of smooth thread like the rays, and dust will not stick to it. The outer spiral is made of more elastic and sticky thread, which, when it is fresh, is covered with fine drops of a sticky liquid. In the finished web (figs. 379, 380) the outer spiral covers three-quarters or more of the diameter and the inner spiral a quarter or less, but in the unfinished web (fig. 381), before the sticky thread is put in, the inner spiral covers nearly the whole of it and is cut out, piece by piece, to make room for the outer spiral. [Illustration: FIG. 379. Web of Epeira strix covered with dew hanging between the rails of a fence. One-third the real size.] [Illustration: FIG. 380. Finished web of Epeira sclopetaria with unusually small number of rays. The spider hangs in the center, head downward, in its customary position. The lower half of the web is wider than the upper half, as it usually is. The cross threads with triangles at the ends are caused by two or more threads sticking together in the middle.]