The Common Spiders of the United States by J. H. Emerton is a natural-history essay collection from 1902. It describes common American spiders in accessible language, with illustrations, aiming to reduce prejudice and encourage popular acquaintance with them. It is worth listening to for anyone curious about spiders and their everyday forms.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
See Transcriber's Notes at end of index.
THE
COMMON SPIDERS
OF THE
UNITED STATES
By JAMES H. EMERTON
BLjǪǵLjƿ, U.S.A., ĵƿŠ LLjƿŠLjƿ
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
The Athenæum Press
EƿǵŧǡŧŠ ĵǵ SǵĵǵƗLjƿŧǡǪ' HĵƯƯ
CLjǙΏǡƗƄƒǵ, 1902, œΏ
JAMES H. EMERTON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
24.12
PREFACE
There are few books on the American spiders, and these are either large and expensive works or else special papers published by scientific societies, and so little known to the public. Since publishing my papers on the New England and Canadian spiders in the
Transactions of the Connecticut Academy from 1882 to 1894, I have had frequent calls for a smaller and simpler book to meet the wants of readers who, without making a special study of the subject, want to know a little about spiders in general and especially those species that they often meet with. It is hoped this book will answer the purpose and help to lessen the prejudice against spiders, and lead to a more general acquaintance with them, like the popular knowledge of birds and butterflies. The characters used in the descriptions are, as far as possible, those that can be seen without microscopic examination and without much experience in the handling of small animals. The illustrations, which show the form and markings of every species, are from my own drawings and photographs, a large part of them made new for this book.
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