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Where favorably located, these webs remain through the entire season, and are enlarged, as the spider grows, by additions on the outer edges, and are supported by threads running up into the neighboring plants. Sometimes the webs are built in close proximity to a stone partially imbedded in the earth, the bottom of the funnel opening slightly underneath the stone, which secures to the spider a convenient harbor in case of threatening danger.

Agalenidæ, as our funnel-web weavers are called, are long-legged, brown spiders, in which the head part of the cephalo-thorax is higher than the thoracic part, and distinctly separated from it by grooves or marks at the sides. The eyes are usually in two rows, but in Agalena the middle eyes of both rows are much higher than the others. The feet have three claws, and the posterior pairs of spinnerets are two-jointed and usually longer than the others. Agalena nævia, the technical name of our Common Grass Spider, abounds in all parts of the United States, but its very commonness is the principal reason why it is so little known except by the trained naturalist, its very familiarity leading the average man and woman to look upon it with contempt.