Out of seven examples of the species taken during one summer, five were found in dead tamarack branches, one on a dead bush, and the seventh, an interesting variety, under the eaves of a porch.  My eye was caught by what seemed to be a string of eleven cocoons (it is not common to see more than four in a web).  On attempting to take them down I was surprised to see one of the supposed cocoons begin to shake the web violently.  Ten were what they seemed to be, but the eleventh was the mother spider, whose color and general appearance was exactly like that of the little cases that she had made for her eggs....

We come now to a large and interesting class in genus Epeira.  I refer to those species, mostly nocturnal, which are protected during the day, not by hiding in crevices, nor in any way actually getting out of sight, but by the close resemblance which they bear to the bark of the trees to which they cling.  This resemblance is brought about in two ways; through their color, which is like that of wood or lichens, and through their tuberculated and rugose forms, which resemble rough bark.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.—­CAEROSTRIS MITRALIS (from Vinson).]

[Illustration:  FIG. 2.—­CAEROSTRIS MITRALIS, in profile (from Vinson).]

One of the most remarkable of these forms is C. mitralis, a Madagascar species, which, looked at in profile, probably resembles a woody knot.  The abdomen is divided into two divergent cones (Fig. 1).  The entire upper surface of the body is covered with conical elevations, which render it rough and uneven; the sides of the abdomen are made up of several layers, which form stages, one above another, like the ridges of bark on a woody excrescence.  The legs, formed of wide, flattened plates, make the base.  The color of the spider is yellowish-gray, varied with white and dark reddish-brown.  It has the habit of perching on a branch and clasping it like a bird, so that the elaborate modification of form, which would be useless if the spider hung exposed in the web, is made as effective as possible.

To take an example nearer home, E. infumata is a large, round-bodied spider, with two humps on the abdomen, which Emerton describes from New England as being brown, mottled with white and black; he adds that when it draws in its feet it looks like a lump of dirt.  Infumata, in Wisconsin, has always a good deal of bluish-green on the upper surface of the abdomen.  This may be a variety which has been so developed as to resemble the lichens which cover the tree to which it clings.  It is one of the spiders which bear a good deal of handling without uncurling its legs, or showing any sign of life.  Its humpy form and its color give it a very inanimate appearance.  It is rather common in our neighborhood and may be caught in the late twilight while building its web, but to search for it in the daytime, even among the trees that it most frequents, is an almost hopeless task.  A more grotesque form is E. stellata, in