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Of spiders and phalangia there are many species. Of the venomous phalangia there are two; one that resembles the so-called wolf-spider, small, speckled, and tapering to a point; it moves with leaps, from which habit it is nicknamed 'the flea': the other kind is large, black in colour, with long front legs; it is heavy in its movements, walks slowly, is not very strong, and never leaps. (Of all the other species wherewith poison-vendors supply themselves, some give a weak bite, and others never bite at all. There is another kind, comprising the so-called wolf-spiders.) Of these spiders the small one weaves no web, and the large weaves a rude and poorly built one on the ground or on dry stone walls. It always builds its web over hollow places inside of which it keeps a watch on the end-threads, until some creature gets into the web and begins to struggle, when out the spider pounces. The speckled kind makes a little shabby web under trees.

There is a third species of this animal, preeminently clever and artistic. It first weaves a thread stretching to all the exterior ends of the future web; then from the centre, which it hits upon with great accuracy, it stretches the warp; on the warp it puts what corresponds to the woof, and then weaves the whole together. It sleeps and stores its food away from the centre, but it is at the centre that it keeps watch for its prey. Then, when any creature touches the web and the centre is set in motion, it first ties and wraps the creature round with threads until it renders it helpless, then lifts it and carries it off, and, if it happens to be hungry, sucks out the life-juices - for that is the way it feeds; but, if it be not hungry, it first mends any damage done and then hastens again to its quest of prey. If something comes meanwhile into the net, the spider at first makes for the centre, and then goes back to its entangled prey as from a fixed starting point. If any one injures a portion of the web, it recommences weaving at sunrise or at sunset, because it is chiefly at these periods that creatures are caught in the web. It is the female that does the weaving and the hunting, but the male takes a share of the booty captured.

Of the skilful spiders, weaving a substantial web, there are two kinds, the larger and the smaller. The one has long legs and keeps watch while swinging downwards from the web: from its large size it cannot easily conceal itself, and so it keeps underneath, so that its prey may not be frightened off, but may strike upon the web's upper surface; the less awkwardly formed one lies in wait on the top, using a little hole for a lurking-place. Spiders can spin webs from the time of their birth, not from their interior as a superfluity or excretion, as Democritus avers, but off their body as a kind of tree-bark, like the creatures that shoot out with their hair, as for instance the porcupine. The creature can attack animals larger than itself, and enwrap them with its threads: in other words, it will attack a small lizard, run round and draw threads about its mouth until it closes the mouth up; then it comes up and bites it.