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Simple nests and tubes are all the majority of spiders construct for their homes. The larger and better known webs for catching insects are made by comparatively few species. He who is astir in the grass-fields on damp summer mornings, will everywhere see innumerous flat webs, from an inch or two to a foot in diameter, which weather-wise folks consider prognostic of a fair day. These webs may always be found upon the grass at the proper season, but only become visible from a distance when the dew is upon them, making the earth appear as covered by an almost continuous carpet of silk.

By far the greater number of these nests is of the form which is termed funnel-webs, which consist of a concave sheet of silk, constituted of strong threads, crossed by finer ones, which the author spins with the long hind-spinnerets, swinging them from side to side, and laying down a band of threads at each stroke, the many hundred threads extending in all directions to the supporting spears of grass. The web is so close and tight that the footsteps of the spider can be distinctly heard by the attentive, listening ear as she runs hither and thither over its scarcely bending surface. At one side of the web is a tube, leading down among the grass-stems, which serves as a hiding-place for the owner of the web. Here, at the top, and just out of sight, the spider ordinarily stands, waiting for something to light upon the web, when she eagerly rushes out, seizing the prey unluckily caught and carrying it into her tube to eat. If too formidable an insect comes upon the web, she turns herself round, beating a precipitate retreat out of the lower end of her funnel and soon is lost beneath the mesh of enveloping and interlacing grasses.