nclosed within chitinous plates, colored like bark, like
lichens, like flowers of every imaginable hue, like bird droppings,
like sand or stones, and in every one of these modifications there is
doubtless an adaptation of the spider to its surroundings which, when
it is studied out of its natural relations, we can only guess at.

It has been well said that in these protective resemblances those
features of the portrait are most attended to by nature which produce
the most effective deception when seen in nature; the faithfulness of
the resemblance being much less striking when seen in the cabinet....

DIRECT PROTECTION. RESEMBLANCES TO VEGETABLE AND INORGANIC
THINGS.--As a general rule the forms and colors of spiders are
adapted to render them inconspicuous in their natural homes. Bright
colored spiders, ... either keep hidden away or are found upon flowers
whose tints harmonize with their own. This rule, while it has
numerous exceptions, is borne out by the great majority of cases. A
good illustration is found in the genus Uloborus, of which the members
bear a deceptive resemblance to small pieces of bark, or to such bits
of rubbish as commonly become entangled in old deserted webs. The only
species in our neighborhood is Uloborus plumipes, which I have almost
invariably found building in dead branches, where its disguise is more
effective than it would be among fresh leaves. The spider is always
found in the middle of the web, with its legs extended in a line with
the body. There has been, in this species, a development along several
lines, resulting in a disguise of considerable complexity. Its form
and color make it like a scrap of bark, its body being truncated and
diversified with small humps, while its first legs are very uneven,
bearing heavy fringes of hair on the tibia and having the terminal
joints slender. Its color is a soft wood-brown or gray, mottled with
white. It has the habit of hanging motionless in the web for hours at
a time, swaying in the wind like an inanimate object. The strands of
its web are rough and inelastic, so that they are frequently broken;
this gives it the appearance of one of those dilapidated and deserted
webs in which bits of wind-blown rubbish are frequently entangled....

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 caug