ht 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 col