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Urban Environment,
Travel Behavior, Health,
and Resident Satisfaction
Anzhelika Antipova
Urban Environment, Travel Behavior, Health,
and Resident Satisfaction
 Anzhelika Antipova

Urban Environment,
Travel Behavior,
Health, and Resident
Satisfaction
Anzhelika Antipova
The University of Memphis
Memphis, TN, USA

ISBN 978-3-319-74197-0    ISBN 978-3-319-74198-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74198-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018931918

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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To my mom and family.
 Acknowledgments

This book could not have been written without the support of numerous
people. At the University of Memphis, Daniel Larsen, Jerry Bartholomew,
and David Dye, who friendly encouraged me to apply for a sabbatical leave
and provided moral and professional support. I am indebted to College of
Arts and Sciences and Department of Earth Sciences at the University of
Memphis for your generosity. I would not be able to focus on writing
otherwise. Thank you for creating a stimulating atmosphere in which to
work productively.
I would like to thank DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch
Dienst e.V.) (German Academic Exchange Service) for granting me a
research scholarship. It gave me an amazing opportunity to design and
implement my research. This is where the idea was born. I want to express
my gratitude to the entire Geography Department at the University of
Duisburg-Essen (Essen, Germany) including a group of students who
assisted with questionnaire administration and all faculty including Prof.
Dr. Rudolf Juchelka, Friedrich Schulte-Derne, Ulrike Ohl, Ulrike
Overbeck, Svenja Böttcher, and others. Thank you for your help with
questionnaire design and translations into German, for hosting me, and
for your sincere support—I truly needed your friendship.
Thank you, my anonymous reviewers who greatly contributed to this
book.
I owe a great deal to my family. My mom’s love has helped me at every
stage of the project. I thank my husband, Yuri, for being there and keep-
ing me focused. Lastly, I thank my daughters Xenia and Julia for being my
friends and being very patient as I worked on the book.

vii
 Contents

1 Introduction   1
1.1 Urban Growth  1
1.2 Urbanization and Problems  3
1.3 Urban Policy  5
1.3.1 Urban Policy of the Nineteenth Century  7
1.3.2 Urban Agenda  8
1.4 Urban Problems of the Twentieth and Early Twenty-First
Centuries  9
1.5 Negative Impacts of Urban Policy  9
1.6 Gautreaux Program 11
1.7 Federal Urban Policies and City Impact 12
1.8 The US National Housing Policy 13
1.8.1 Major Housing Programs and Impacts 13
1.8.1.1 Shortage of Affordable Housing 17
1.8.1.2 Housing Policy Change. Poverty
Deconcentration 17
1.8.2 Public Awareness of Housing Discrimination 18
1.8.3 Housing Discrimination 2001 Survey 18
1.8.3.1 Investigating Housing Discrimination 19
1.8.3.2 “Do We Know More Now?” Survey 20
1.8.3.3 Housing Discrimination Survey Findings 21
1.8.3.4 Housing Discrimination: Public
Awareness as a Public Policy Tool 21
1.8.4 Air Pollution Program and Brownfields 22
Bibliography  29

ix
x Contents

2 Urban Environment: The Differences between the City

in Europe and the United States  35
2.1 Urban Form Definitions 35
2.1.1 Urban Form Measures 35
2.1.2 Urban Form and Travel 37
2.1.3 Global Urban Form Differences 45
2.1.4 Remote Sensing Data Website 45
2.1.5 Landscape Spatial Analysis Website 46
2.1.6 Factors Influencing Urban Form:
Land-Use Patterns 50
2.1.6.1 Other Factors Influencing Urban Form 52
2.2 Transportation and Urban Growth 53
2.3 Costs Associated with Road Vehicles 61
2.4 European Cities 62
2.4.1 Automobile Use Is Limited 66
2.4.2 Measures to Halt Sprawl: Area Regeneration 67
2.4.3 Measures to Halt Sprawl: Greenbelts 70
2.4.4 Urban Sprawl and Contemporary Europe 71
2.4.5 Built-Up Data Website 72
2.5 North American Cities 72
2.5.1 Change in Urban Shape in the Nineteenth-
and Twentieth-Century United States 73
2.5.1.1 The 1800s: Dense Urban Cores 75
2.5.1.2 Era of Skyscrapers 76
2.5.1.3 Population and Manufacturing
Decentralization 77
2.5.2 Urban Growth Management 78
2.5.2.1 Government Home Programs
and Suburban Development 79
2.5.2.2 Technological Factors of Suburbanization 80
2.6 Comparison of Planning in the United States
and European Countries 81
2.6.1 Western European Planning 81
2.6.1.1 Overview of Western European Planning:
Centralized Planning 82
2.6.1.2 Regional Balance Is Encouraged 83
2.6.1.3 Property-Led Development 83
2.6.2 British Planning System 84
2.6.2.1 Wales Spatial Plan: The Emphasis
on Sustainability 85
 Contents 
   xi

2.6.2.2 Danish National Planning System 89

2.6.2.3 German Planning System 89
2.7 The US National Planning 91
2.7.1 Federal Legislation and US Territorial Expansion 91
2.7.1.1 1862 Legislation 91
2.7.1.2 Western States Development 92
2.7.2 Highway Legislation and Suburbanization 92
2.7.3 Federal Legislation and Metropolitan Expansion 93
2.7.4 US Regional Planning: Metropolitan and Regional
Planning Entities 94
2.7.4.1 Need for Comprehensive Regional
Planning 95
2.7.4.2 The 1920s: First Wave of Metropolitan
Regional Planning in Los Angeles 95
2.7.4.3 Chicago Metropolitan Regional Planning 96
2.7.4.4 Other Examples of Metropolitan Regional
Planning 96
2.7.4.5 Second Wave of Metropolitan Regional
Planning: SANDAG 97
2.7.4.6 Second Wave of Regional Planning:
DRCOG 98
2.7.5 US City Planning: Tools of Municipal Development100
2.7.5.1 Municipal Land-Use Controls 101
2.7.5.2 Municipal Zoning 101
2.7.5.3 Eminent Domain Versus Zoning 104
2.7.5.4 Zoning and Land-Use Separation 104
2.7.5.5 Environmental and Social Justice
and Zoning 106
2.7.5.6 Exclusionary Land-Use Regulation 106
2.7.6 Alternatives to Zoning107
Bibliography 110

3 Local Amenities and Neighborhood Perception 119

3.1 Introduction119
3.2 Local Urban Amenities and Neighborhood Perception
and Satisfaction123
3.3 Study Area125
3.4 Methodology127
3.5 Factor Analysis130
xii Contents

3.6 Ordinal Logistic Regression134

3.7 Results and Findings140
3.8 Discussion and Conclusion144
Bibliography 146

4 City Structure and Spatial Patterns 153

4.1 Introduction153
4.2 Internal City Structure Models154
4.2.1 Concentric (Ring) Model155
4.2.2 Limitations of Concentric Circle Theory156
4.2.3 Sector (Wedge) Model158
4.2.3.1 Delineating Rent Areas 159
4.2.3.2 Rent Areas Are Generalizable 160
4.2.4 Monocentric Urban Structure161
4.2.5 Polycentric Urban Structure. Multiple Nuclei Model164
4.3 Urban System Models166
4.3.1 Urban Systems Modelling168
4.3.1.1 Lowry’s Residential and Retail Location
Model (1964) 170
4.3.2 Early Urban Models Limitations176
4.3.3 Harris and Wilson’s (1978) Retail Location Model177
4.3.3.1 Entropy Maximization 179
4.3.4 Spatial Structure and Spatial Interaction Models180
4.3.5 Dynamic Models181
4.3.5.1 Entropy Maximization and Spatial
Interaction Models 182
4.3.5.2 Location-Interaction Integrated Models 183
4.4 Urban Subsystems184
4.5 Contemporary Urban Modeling Development185
4.6 Recent Applications of Spatial Interaction Models186
4.7 Case Study: Urban Structure and Commuting Patterns
in the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area187
4.7.1 Introduction187
4.7.2 Study Area and Data189
4.7.3 Identification of the Employment Centers:
Methodology190
4.7.3.1 1990–2000 Employment Concentrations 194
4.7.4 Examining Impacts of Urban Structure
on Commuting Patterns195
 Contents 
   xiii

4.7.4.1 Commuting and Monocentric

Versus Polycentric Structure:
Hypothetical Scenario 195
4.7.4.2 Commuting and Monocentric
Versus Polycentric Structure: Observed Data 196
4.8 Conclusions 198
Bibliography 199

5 The Relationship Between Urban Environment and Travel

Behavior 205
5.1 Urbanization and Travel Growth205
5.2 Active Travel: Walking and Cycling as an Alternative
to Vehicle Travel206
5.2.1 Design Features Favorable to Walking/Cycling209
5.2.2 Safety and Active Travel213
5.2.3 Active Travel in Germany and the United States216
5.3 Evidence of Impact of Environmental Factors on Active
Travel222
5.3.1 Active Travel224
5.4 Limitations of Transportation Studies224
5.5 Physical Activity Programs226
5.6 Built Environment and Cycling229
5.7 Active School Transport (AST)233
5.7.1 AST and Safety Perceptions 235
5.8 Use of Public Transportation237
5.9 Built Environment and Travel Behavior243
5.10 What Is TOD?247
5.10.1 Impact of TOD on Land Use250
5.10.2 Impact of TOD on Urban Mobility252
5.10.3 Solving Urban Congestion252
5.10.4 TOD and Urban Mobility254
5.10.5 Corridor Planning255
5.10.6 Recommendations on TOD Implementation256
5.10.7 TOD Impacts on Residential and Business
Location and Travel Decisions257
5.11 Changing Urban Demographics and Travel Behavior259
5.11.1 TOD Impacts on the Elderly’s Travel Behavior260
Bibliography 261
xiv Contents

6 The Relationship Between Urban Environment and Health 267

6.1 Introduction267
6.2 Obesity and Inactive Lifestyles271
6.3 Physical Activity273
6.3.1 Walking, Walkability, and Health Outcomes274
6.3.2 Neighborhood Changes and Health-Related
Outcomes276
6.3.3 Physical Activity and Road Safety Barriers276
6.4 Pedestrian and Cycling Safety in Europe and the United
States280
6.5 Transportation and Health: Traffic Fatalities and Injuries281
6.6 Transportation and Health: Commuting Impacts283
6.7 Transportation and Health: Exposure to Transport-­
Generated Air Pollution289
6.8 Transportation and Health: Commuters’ Exposure
to Particulate Matter Air Pollution292
6.8.1 Transportation and Health: School Buses
and Childhood Air Pollution Exposure294
6.9 Transportation and Health: Residential Traffic Exposure296
6.10 Social Stress and Air Pollution297
6.11 Measures to Reduce Air Pollution Exposure298
6.12 Air Pollution and Births300
6.13 Health Benefits of Air Quality Improvements304
6.14 China305
6.14.1 Urbanization305
6.14.2 Demographic Profile307
6.14.3 Active Travel and Health308
6.14.4 Chinese Large-Scale Migration and Hukou308
6.14.5 Urbanization and Health: Potential
Mechanism in China311
6.14.5.1 China: Access to Urban Health Care
and Risk Factors 313
6.14.6 China: Exposure to Air Pollution314
6.14.6.1 China: Spatial Variation in Air
Pollution 317
6.14.6.2 Urbanization and Air Quality 317
6.14.7 Impact of Urban Form on Air Quality318
6.14.8 Beijing322
Bibliography 325
 Contents 
   xv

7 Conclusions 335
7.1 Introduction335
7.2 How Changing Demographics and Travel Behavior Are
Related339
7.3 What Are Housing/Working Perceptions and Motivations
of Transit Access?340
7.4 What Is the Role of Urban Built Environment in Pollution
Exposure?342
7.5 What Are the Trends in Urban Air Pollution and Its
Health Effects?344
7.5.1 What Are the Global Health Impacts of Air
Pollution?345
7.5.2 How Does School Travel Relate to Pollution
Exposure?348
7.5.3 Commuting Has Important Effects on Health,
and Work Experience349
7.6 What Are the Links Between Health and Active
Transportation?351
7.7 There Are Safety Aspects of Active Travel352
7.7.1 What Can Be Done to Prevent Obesity?353
Bibliography 355

Index  359
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Major city growth in the US in 1790–1990 2

Fig. 1.2 Housing crowding rates, 1940 and 2000 5
Fig. 1.3 The US conventional car-dependent, low-density suburban
neighborhood where light trucks are the preferred personal
vehicles (Author, 2017) 10
Fig. 2.1 Moving 12-month total vehicle miles traveled, 1970–2017 40
Fig. 2.2 Urban form and retail viability relationship in the Memphis
metropolitan area (Source: Author) 42
Fig. 2.3 Open space is an important amenity: Madison Square lawn
in New York (Author 2013) 46
Fig. 2.4 Many more Europeans live on far less space than in the
USA. Residential zone in Essen, Germany (Author 2010) 51
Fig. 2.5 The contour of Lake Michigan affects the shape of Chicago
(Author 2016) 52
Fig. 2.6 Invented in 1873 by Andrew Smith Hallidie, historical cable
car in San Francisco (Author 2016) 54
Fig. 2.7 Elevated rail lines in Chicago are an important form of
intraurban transportation (Author 2016) 57
Fig. 2.8 Number of cars bought by year, 1922–1929 59
Fig. 2.9 Historical buildings are important urban form elements in
European cities. A palace in Potsdam, Germany (Author 2016) 63
Fig. 2.10 Cathedral in Berlin, Germany (Author 2016) 64
Fig. 2.11 Residential zone in Berlin (Author 2016) 66
Fig. 2.12 Speed limit is 30 km per hour in a residential area in Berlin
(Author 2016) 68
Fig. 2.13 US Immigrant population and share over time, 1850–present 74
Fig. 2.14 Number of legal admitted permanent residents by year 75

xvii
xviii List of Figures

Fig. 2.15 Climate-proof urban development of an inner-city quarter

(University Duisburg-Essen) in Essen, Germany. This urban
redevelopment aims at 50% reduction in CO2 by 2020
(Author 2010) 90
Fig. 2.16 Stepped-back structure design in New York (Author 2013) 103
Fig. 2.17 Form-based zoning in Seaside, FL (Author 2012) 110
Fig. 3.1 Nearby parks are an important amenity in Berlin (Author
2016)120
Fig. 3.2 Nearby education facilities enhance the quality of life:
The music school in Berlin (Author 2016) 121
Fig. 3.3 A residential zone in Berlin has an incorporated
playground in the inner yard (Author 2016) 124
Fig. 3.4 Study area 126
Fig. 3.5 Factors analysis of neighborhood perception (upper panel):
(a) scree plot pattern of factors (b) amount of variance
explained as a percent of common variance in the data set;
and neighborhood satisfaction (lower panel): (c) scree plot
pattern of factors, and (d) amount of variance explained 132
Fig. 3.6 Ordinal logistic model: fitted probabilities for three levels
of neighborhood importance—VI very important, IM
important, NI not important—as a function of (a) education
perception (Factor 1); and (b) perception of personal and
environmental safety and green space availability (Factor 4) 141
Fig. 3.7 The ordinal logistic model: fitted probabilities for three
levels of neighborhood importance—VI very important, IM
important, NI not important—as a function of commercial
facilities (Factor 2) 143
Fig. 4.1 High-rise residential and commercial district at Lake Street,
Chicago. (Author 2013) 157
Fig. 4.2 Vertical expansion in New York. The High-Rise Crowne
Plaza Hotel at Times Square. The iconic Hershey’
Chocolate World closed its 15-year long location on
Broadway in September 2017. (Author 2013) 162
Fig. 4.3 High-Rise Apartment Building (at the right) at Millennium
Park, Chicago. (Author 2015) 163
Fig. 4.4 Employment Sub/centers and the Major Employers in Baton
Rouge in 2000 189
Fig. 4.5 Employment Subcenters in 1990 and 2000 IN Baton Rouge.
(Note: center numbers can be found in Table 4.1) 193
Fig. 4.6 1997 Baton Rouge Transportation Survey Respondents’
Observed Commuting Times and Employment Centers
Locations198
Fig. 5.1 Bike facilities in Rotterdam, Netherlands. (Author 2010) 208
 List of Figures 
   xix

Fig. 5.2 Bike storage facilities in Washington, DC. (Author 2010) 209
Fig. 5.3 In Washington DC, local-scale design features including
trees, aesthetically pleasing places, and well-maintained
sidewalks are favorable to pedestrians. (Author 2010) 210
Fig. 5.4 Street-level commercial uses (a bakery is on the right and
barber’s salon is on the left) and residencies above in Essen,
Germany. (Author 2010) 211
Fig. 5.5 One-family house in a conventional US suburb in Memphis.
(Author 2017) 214
Fig. 5.6 Traffic calming in residential areas: 30 km posted speed in
Essen, Germany. (Author 2010) 216
Fig. 5.7 Higher than in Germany posted speeds of 35 miles/hour
(>56 km/hour) in residential areas in USA. (Author 2017) 217
Fig. 5.8 A residential suburb by Essen, Germany. (Author 2010) 218
Fig. 5.9 Open air farmers market in pedestrian car-free zones in
Essen center, Germany. (Author 2010) 219
Fig. 5.10 German senior citizens at a light rail stop near a residential
neighborhood in Essen, Germany. (Author 2010) 221
Fig. 5.11 Off-street separated red-colored bike path in Rotterdam,
Netherlands. (Author 2010) 223
Fig. 5.12 Walking in Boston past a popular restaurant. (Author 2013) 225
Fig. 5.13 Many people are walking along the Esplanade in NYC.
(Author 2013) 228
Fig. 5.14 New York is among the US cities where cycling rates have
increased. (Author 2013) 230
Fig. 5.15 Light rail (“Ubahn”) on a street by residential buildings
in Essen, Germany. (Author 2010) 237
Fig. 5.16 Waiting for a commuter train to New York City.
(Author 2013) 238
Fig. 5.17 Public transportation in Boston. (Author 2013) 239
Fig. 5.18 Walking to a public transportation stop in Boston.
(Author 2013) 240
Fig. 5.19 Real-time light-rail schedule and train information in Essen,
Germany. (Author 2010) 242
Fig. 5.20 Active travel percentage of all trips (%) for USA (2001, 2009)
and Germany (2002, 2008) 243
Fig. 5.21 Compact development consisting of multistory residential
buildings stores with commercial uses occupying the first
floor and limited car parking in Essen, Germany.
(Author 2010) 244
Fig. 5.22 A residential area is closely located to light rail and bus stops
in Essen, Germany. (Author 2010) 248
xx List of Figures

Fig. 5.23 Access to underground light rail is highly visible in Essen,

Germany. (Author 2010) 249
Fig. 5.24 Residential suburbs are served by efficient light rail in Essen,
Germany. (Author 2010) 259
Fig. 6.1 Increasing regular physical activity contributes to public
health: people walk along the Esplanade in NYC.
(Author 2013) 274
Fig. 6.2 One solution to physical inactivity is deliberate exercise such
as walking on a regular basis. (Author, Boston 2013) 275
Fig. 6.3 Walking and biking in Manhattan. The 102-story Empire
State Building is seen in the background. (Author 2013) 284
Fig. 6.4 Street canyon formed in Downtown Chicago.
(Author 2015) 291
Fig. 6.5 School buses add to childhood air pollution exposures.
(Author 2017) 295
Fig. 6.6 High- and low-exposure areas identified across Shelby
County, TN. (Author 2017) 301
Fig. 6.7 Low Birthweight (LBW) rates superimposed on high- and
low-­exposure areas. (Author 2017) 303
Fig. 7.1 Top 5 walk and bike commuting cities by city
size: 2010–2014 354
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Perceived importance of and satisfaction with the different

urban amenities 122
Table 3.2 Demographic composition of travel survey respondents 129
Table 3.3 Likert-type scale used in the questionnaire 130
Table 3.4 Factor analysis—rotated factor pattern 133
Table 3.5 Results of the ordinal logistic models of perceived
preference for and stated satisfaction with a neighborhood 137
Table 4.1 2000 and 1990 employment concentrations (Ranked
according to number of jobs) 191
Table 4.2 T-test of mean commuting times and distances
(Monocentric- and Polycentric-simulated) 196
Table 4.3 T-test of the mean commuting times and
distances (Observed) 197
Table 6.1 Results of the chi-square test for LBW and pre-term births 303

xxi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1   Urban Growth

Prior to the 1820s, only a small percentage of the population lived in cit-
ies, which were restricted in physical area and mainly served as maritime
trade centers for overseas shipping. In 1790, the first federal census showed
that only 5.1% of the total population lived in cities (Miller 1973). In port
cities, the occupations of merchants and skilled artisans and mechanics
sustaining a shipping-based economy were important with most busi-
nesses and activities located close to the waterfront during the pre-1820s
era. However, most people were primarily engaged in agriculture-related
economic activities and lived outside the major cities (95%). Cities were
growing very slowly at that time. New York City grew incrementally as the
needs of the growing Atlantic economy and trade boom required con-
struction of new docks, wharves, and piers and consequently a larger port.
Starting in 1807, it finally experienced population growth so high that a
layout was devised by a special commission authorized by the state of
New York covering almost the entire area of Manhattan Island consisting
of farms, villages, and open country terrain (Peterson 2003). In 1820,
New York City’s population reached 100,000 and became the first “great
city.” By 1840, two more cities acquired “great city” status—Baltimore
and New Orleans (Fig. 1.1).

© The Author(s) 2018 1

A. Antipova, Urban Environment, Travel Behavior, Health, and Resident
Satisfaction, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74198-7_1
2 A. ANTIPOVA

Fig. 1.1 Major city growth in the US in 1790–1990

Since the 1820s, urban growth notably exceeded population growth.

As a national market economy developed, cities served as commercial,
manufacturing, and financial centers. As inland markets opened up, port
cities expanded their businesses giving rise to many new occupations
including bankers, brokers, insurers, retailers, and so on. The urbanization
of America has increased with the industrialization. From the 1840s
onward, a new type of production emerged. Factories replaced old cottage
industries (small shops producing cloth, garments, shoes, and other con-
sumer goods). As the national market evolved and mechanization
increased, factories achieved ever larger scale. Large-scale factory produc-
tion required mass labor, which in turn required mass nearby housing.
Mass production created a growing consumer goods market. Great urban
centers emerged in the mid-nineteenth century.
In the United States, the rate of population increase during the nine-
teenth to early twentieth centuries was mostly determined by rapid natural
increase (more births than deaths) and population migration (more immi-
gration than emigration) increasing the labor force and the size and diver-
sity of urban population. Immigrants, many of them of European descent,
supplied the labor demand in manufacturing and construction. The Lower
East Side of New York and the West Side of Chicago once provided the
cheapest rent quarters for the newly arrived European immigrants, while
later the worst buildings were removed by demolition. The populations of
New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia each surpassed the one million
mark by 1890.
 INTRODUCTION 3

As cities grew, their physical form changed. All American cities, large
and small, had a well-defined central core district. By the beginning of the
twentieth century, the core business districts of the cities concentrated
most commercial, financial, and retail uses including offices, banks, hotels,
theaters, restaurants, department and specialty stores, and the like. Other
functions of the downtown area included governmental and wholesale. All
these downtown functions drew employees, clients, and visitors, with the
city population relying upon the central core district for jobs, consumer
goods, and services. The central core district kept its centrality advantage
until the 1920s. Light industry and manufacturing was abundant near the
central district and was also located along the freight railroads or major
waterways or both. Industries included lumberyards, grain elevators, and
bulk storage facilities (Peterson 2003).
Residencies also developed, and became diversified by class. Immigrants
and common workers walked to the shops and factories and needed hous-
ing nearby. Crowded working-class neighborhoods consisting of cheap
rental barracks, tenements, and wood-frame houses are seen in the
­photographs of the time blackened with coal smoke coming from adjacent
industrial sites. Better apartments of the emerging lower middle class lined
streetcar routes on both sides so that dwellers of these newer neighbor-
hoods could ride the streetcar to work. Best lands near the central core
and the edge of the city were occupied by single-family housing of upper-­
income class. The expensive inland enclaves and suburbs were often
located along the streetcar lines or commuter railroads offering fast
transportation.

1.2   Urbanization and Problems

Urbanization has brought with it many problems. With great city growth
beginning since the 1820s, unregulated, unplanned growth soon pro-
duced unforeseen environmental stresses including dirty streets, poor air,
recurrent fires, congested working and living conditions, and, at the worst,
slums. Tenement houses promoted transmission of dangerous communi-
cable diseases such as tuberculosis due to their crowded, congested condi-
tions. Workers in large industrial cities in the mid-nineteenth century
occupied the “railroad flats,” with limited sunlight and fresh air, with no
water supply or sanitary facilities provided.
From the 1840s onward, cities turned into big congested places charac-
terized by concentration and density. In health this manifested in frequent
4 A. ANTIPOVA

epidemics such as cholera and high mortality and morbidity. High rates of
infant mortality and low life expectancy impacted population in a devastat-
ing way. Levy (2013) blames congestion for the natural decrease experi-
enced for much of the nineteenth century by most large American cities:
there were more deaths than births, but in fact, many cities increased due
to in-migration. Cities of the nineteenth century had no water treatment
facilities or sewage disposal.
Although the early twentieth century saw abatement of the worst over-
crowding in urban slum neighborhoods compared with the nineteenth
century, a substantial amount of substandard dwellings were still found in
many large American cities. For example, St. Louis, where many structures
erected in the previous century had inadequate facilities (e.g., no indoor
toilets were installed but merely outhouses, plus only cold water or no
running water was provided) (Hoffman 2012). In the early twentieth cen-
tury, the coming of the automobile made roads dangerous to pedestrians
and exposed people to noise and gasoline fumes.
Implementation of urban housing programs (described later in the
chapter), especially the creation of the public housing program in 1937
and the enactment of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968,
resulted in renovation and repair of existing structures so that the share of
residential buildings in need of substantial physical repair greatly declined,
while living conditions greatly improved. To compare, in 1940, 45% of
American homes had inadequate facilities (that is, no running water, a
flush toilet, or a private bath); the percentage of homes lacking these
indoor facilities was just under 3% in 1980.
The level of crowding has declined steeply over the years 1940 to 2000.
According to the US Historical Census of Housing (2011), the overall
share of crowded households (occupied housing units are considered
crowded if there is more than one person per room) declined over time:
the percentage of crowding decreased from 20% in 1940 to 4.5% in 1980;
however, it rose to 5.7% in 2000. The level of severely crowded homes
(homes are considered severely crowded if there is more than 1.5 persons
per room) changed in a similar way: in 1940, 9% of all homes were severely
crowded, while only 1.4% of occupied housing units in 1980 were consid-
ered as such. This percentage rose again in 2000 to 2.7% (2.9 million were
considered severely crowded).
Geographically, in 1940, states with high crowding rates were largely con-
centrated in the South. New Mexico had a crowding rate more than twice
the national rate: 48% versus 20% national rate, followed by Alabama
 INTRODUCTION 5

Fig. 1.2 Housing crowding rates, 1940 and 2000

(41%), Mississippi (40%), Arizona (39%), Arkansas (37.8%), and Georgia

(36.5%). The states in the Northeast and Midwest had lower than the
national average crowding rate: Vermont had the lowest rate of about
10%, while New Hampshire, Delaware, Iowa, and Massachusetts each had
a rate around 11%. The rates and geographical pattern have changed over
time, for example, in 2000, the states with the highest crowding rates were
Hawaii and California, each at about 15%, followed by Texas (9.4%),
Washington, DC (8.9%), and Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, each with 8.6%
compared with the national average crowding rate of 5.7% in the same
year. The Northeastern states such as Maine (1.3%), West Virginia (1.3%),
Vermont (1.4%), and New Hampshire (1.6%) each had low crowding rates
(US Census 2011). Similarly, the number of people living in severely
crowded conditions decreased from 9% in 1940 to less than 1.5% in 1980
(US Census 2011) (Fig. 1.2).
Recent rapid urbanization triggered many new environmental and
socioeconomic problems. These include urban heat islands, energy
­consumption, air pollution, public health problems, deforestation, biodi-
versity, and the loss of high-quality agricultural lands (Clinton and Gong
2013; Zhang et al. 2013; DeFries et al. 2010). To lessen the impact of
these and other problems cities are facing, understanding of urban growth
is of critical importance to urban planners.

1.3   Urban Policy

While there is no simple definition, urban policy can be summarized as a

(1) Design and implementation of a set of complex activities in response

to pressures of urban growth including the provision of essential
public services and municipal infrastructure,
6 A. ANTIPOVA

(2) Development of means to control and coordinate urban growth,

(3) Creation of social and environmental programs designed to
improve the effects of decline and poverty.

Contemporary urban policy emerged during the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries as rapidly growing cities were industrializing. Within a
single country, urban policy changes over time reflecting different goals
and objectives (UN-Habitat 2014). Additionally, there is no agreement
about what constitutes the most appropriate tools and techniques of urban
policy.
The mid-twentieth century urban planners were seeking to develop a
universal, rational, scientific research-based method to decision-making
whereby different scenarios of the interactions between land use, trans-
port, and housing within cities could be analyzed (a section on urban
models is provided later in the chapter). Urban planners believed a scien-
tific method should be employed for selecting the optimum solution for
specified goals as well as predicting outcomes. On the one hand, research
is determined by policy goals.
On the other hand, credible research can either support or disprove
statements and assumptions about a policy’s merit. With many countries
having policies in place aimed at a reduction of private vehicle dependency,
the design of compact walkable communities is considered an effective
strategy. However, it is unclear what factors affect travel behavior (that is,
commuting time and distance, modal choice, trip chaining, and the like),
making it hard to formulate efficient urban policies targeted at changing
travel behavior (Dieleman et al. 2002). For example, choice of a transport
mode and distances travelled may be impacted both by urban form and
design as well as personal characteristics including household income and
size, and trip purpose (work, school, shopping, social, and recreation).
Compared with low-income households, families with higher incomes
have higher car ownership rates. Use of a private vehicle is also higher by
higher-income families and those with children. What attributes of urban
residential environments determine modal choice and travel distance? To
explore these relationships in detail, generalizable and replicable research
is needed. Rigorous research makes valuable contributions by helping for-
mulate a useful policy tool.
Urban policy-making should be informed both by the direct and indi-
rect effects of different urban decisions. For example, the decision-maker
must have a good understanding of how investment in transportation
(e.g., construction of a new bus station) will improve commute experience
 INTRODUCTION 7

for the current travelers and those who may switch from car to public tran-
sit (direct effect), but also what changes in land-use patterns it may trigger,
such as changes in the level and location of employment and increased
apartment rents and land prices, both of which are indirect effects caused
by improved (real and perceived) accessibility of a place. Therefore, model-
ing is useful in the research context (analysis of complex relationships) and
in many urban policy-making contexts (analysis of urban policies) at the
different levels, from local to federal. For example, local governments issue
policies on zoning that permit specific economic activities in some urban
parts but not in the others, while transportation planning policies contrib-
ute to a provision of a transportation system that is safe and convenient
while impacting travel behavior of the existing commuters and addressing
the needs of lower income families, those without cars, and so on.

1.3.1  Urban Policy of the Nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century, cities experienced chaotic urban growth.
Inefficient structural arrangement led to severe overcrowding of many
urban activities (often incompatible with one another) in one location,
which created unsanitary living environments. Municipal infrastructure
was lacking: cities had no sewage disposal, so sewage polluted wells and
other water sources while refuse was not removed.
For example, Chicago was growing rapidly between the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. The population of Chicago grew from
3820 in 1836 to 93,000 in 1857, quadrupling from1857 to 1873, then
tripling from 1874 to 1899 (Hoyt 1939, p. 82) to becoming the third
most populous city in the United States. However, the city was evolving
without much state regulation and coordination.
Accompanying this population explosion was a sustained expansion and
outward movement of high-grade fashionable neighborhoods farther
from Chicago’s downtown (“The Loop”). The speed with which high-­
grade neighborhoods move to new locations varies from place to place.
Although many local factors determine the rate of neighborhood change
and accordingly the rate of change in the internal structure of a city includ-
ing residential characteristics, type of buildings, and so on, the rate of
population growth is one of the most important determinants. The pro-
cess of population growth and movement of the high-grade neighbor-
hoods to new locations continued for more than a century in many other
fast-growing American cities including New York, Detroit, Los Angeles,
Seattle, and Washington, DC.
8 A. ANTIPOVA

With time, local municipalities were created through legal framework.

Urban policies were initially a physical reaction to problems of overcrowd-
ing, congestion, and public health and their consequences in fast-growing
cities. Local governments were responsible for constructing buildings,
building municipal infrastructure, and providing essential municipal ser-
vices to improve citizens’ welfare and public health. To cover costs, a taxa-
tion system was developed whereby property and other types of taxes are
collected to generate revenues.

1.3.2  Urban Agenda
Since the early twentieth century, municipal governments became respon-
sible for managing growth and regulating the character of urban develop-
ment. The patterns of land uses in American cities have been changing. In
addition to shifts in residential neighborhoods, there were changes in the
pattern of commercial and industrial uses. With time, as the city’s popula-
tion increases, non-residential land uses in the central business district
(CBD) tend to start expanding. Financial and business uses press outward
and invade residential areas near the CBD and there occurs a subsequent
replacement of residential area as the expanding retail commercial uses
force people to move farther out. New technology (e.g., a steel-frame
skyscraper, elevator) enables the vertical growth and leads to the
­intensification of land use within the CBD area with the height of the
buildings changing the skyline of the downtown area.
As the middle- and upper-income class residencies relocate toward the
periphery (simultaneously decreasing purchasing power of people who
reside near the CBD), the stores and shopping centers also move away from
the CBD in the direction of the high-class residential area. Retail commer-
cial uses relocate to where two or more main highways converge and form
outlying business centers, or along the principal highway. The outlying busi-
ness centers are comparable in terms of services and facilities (e.g., chain
stores) with those of the main business center and become increasingly
more important regarding the total volume of retail sales. For example, in
pre–Civil War Philadelphia, the downtown area was within easy reach for all
the city’s residents and most retail and banking was concentrated within the
central business core. In the 1930s, as the city grew in area and population,
outlying shopping centers developed outside the central district. Similarly,
in Chicago during 1900–1915 businesses were concentrated in the Loop
 INTRODUCTION 9

area, however, the development of new high-­priced housing beyond the

elevated lines led to the rise of outlying shopping centers after 1915 (Hoyt
1939, p. 109).
Besides the problems of physical growth, the urban agenda also faces
social and environmental problems that are addressed by urban policy
(Cochrane 2007). For example, a decline in manufacturing in late
1960s–1970s caused by an increase in international competition led to
rising unemployment and environmental dereliction as many industrial
plants and factories shut down, while abandoned buildings became run
down, former industrial sites became contaminated, and underutilized
infrastructure crumbled. Dissatisfaction with rising poverty and govern-
ment’s incapacity to make good on its commitment to full employment
resulted in public unrest and street violence in many American cities. To
improve poor housing and a series of linked social conditions such as low
educational attainment, substandard housing, family breakdown, high
crime and the like, the War on Poverty program was launched in the
United States. This special initiative targeted low-income neighborhoods
(UN-Habitat 2014).

1.4   Urban Problems of the Twentieth and Early

Twenty-First Centuries
Urban problems of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are mul-
tifaceted and include the following issues: severe housing shortage of the
Great Depression and post–World War II period, inner-city poverty con-
centration in many American cities, residential segregation, affordable
housing, residential overcrowding, substandard overall housing condi-
tions, fair access to housing and mortgage finance for minority and low-­
income families, and the like. These and other important issues have been
the focus of urban housing policy. Some issues have been resolved. Others
remain the primary debate issues including preservation of low-income
housing, enforcement of fair housing laws, and the like.

1.5   Negative Impacts of Urban Policy

Urban policy can produce undesired effects. For example, after the US
government’s investment in a highway interstate system whereby a net-
work of suburban freeways has been constructed starting in 1950s, the
speed of deconcentration of American cities and decentralization to outly-
10 A. ANTIPOVA

ing centers increased greatly leading to unplanned growth and urban

sprawl. To achieve a reversal of the direction of the “white flight” (that is,
people who had moved to the suburbs to escape the problems of rising
crime and social disorder of core city locations), the new urban policy
seeks to attract families back to inner-city areas. The new urban policy of
gentrification (which means the physical renewal, rehabilitation, and ret-
rofitting of old buildings with the purpose of transforming city districts
into viable commercial centers and reinvigorated residential areas) targets
especially the middle-income classes, young professionals, and creative
class workers (Turok 2009).
In the United States, urban sprawl is often characterized by its frag-
mented character, dispersed development, and its light regulation. The
United States introduced the tradition of a particular style of housing,
freestanding single-family houses (rather than attached houses such as ter-
races and semi-detached, which are more common in Europe) (UN-Habitat
2014), associated with rising car ownership, further promoting urban
sprawl and low density neighborhoods. Many countries today have
policies to shorten distances traveled by private car and reduce car depen-
dency (Dieleman et al. 2002) (Fig. 1.3).

Fig. 1.3 The US conventional car-dependent, low-density suburban neighbor-

hood where light trucks are the preferred personal vehicles (Author, 2017)
 INTRODUCTION 11

In response to suburban sprawl and separation of different land uses

resulting in long commuting times, traffic congestion, and air pollu-
tion, as well as to promote better, more compact urban forms, higher
density, and mixed-use developments, a “new urbanism” or “smart
growth” approach got traction in Europe and the United States
(UN-Habitat 2013). Other than private cars, modes of transportation
are promoted including public transport, walking, and cycling. Higher
density and mixed-use land uses can be achieved within transit-ori-
ented development (TOD) where increased accessibility offered by
mass transit tends to create higher-­density housing around the stations
(UN-Habitat 2014).
Other local urban policies promote job creation, childcare support,
community services, poverty reduction, and the like. Lives of all urban
residents are impacted, although to a different degree, by local urban poli-
cies: municipal zoning ordinances can affect property values, while local
property taxation affects the quality of local schools.

1.6   Gautreaux Program

Municipal housing strategies are used to further the US Department of
Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) fair housing commitment to
eliminate housing discrimination and promote residential, racial, and
economic integration. An example of one such local program is Chicago’s
1966–1998 Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program developed to move
households away from segregated and very low-income inner-city areas.
A class action lawsuit, Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, filed in
1966, became a landmark event for housing policy. The Chicago Housing
Authority (CHA) and HUD were charged with racial discrimination
because public housing projects were concentrated in mostly Black neigh-
borhoods and public housing tenants were segregated by race into neigh-
borhoods of the same race. In order to deconcentrate the Black tenants
of public housing, the US Supreme Court ruled the CHA to scatter new
public housing and avoid their concentration in Black neighborhoods as
well as provide opportunities for Blacks to live in predominately white
Chicago neighborhoods (Basolo 2013). There is compelling evidence of
the success of the Gautreaux program reflected in a range of improved
socioeconomic outcomes including lower neighborhood poverty
rates after residential relocation (DeLuca et al. 2010), increased job
Another random document with
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immediately. Ten days’ starvation appeared to weaken the venom,
for a bird bitten by a spider fasting for that period recovered after an
indisposition of six hours.
Most Arachnologists have recorded experiments with regard to the
venom of the commoner European species, with equally conflicting
results. Blackwall came to the conclusion that loss of blood, and not
poison, caused the death of spider-bitten insects. He could not
himself distinguish a spider bite from the prick of a needle inflicted
upon his hand at the same time. Bees, wasps, and grasshoppers
survived the bite about as long as other insects of the same species
outlived a needle-prick in the same part of the body. Walckenaer’s
experience was of the same nature. Bertkau, however, when bitten in
the hand, felt clear indications of an irritant poison in the wound.
The hairs of some of the large hairy species of the Aviculariidae
possess poisonous properties. They are readily parted with, and
when the animal is touched by the hand considerable irritation is set
up.
Fertility of Spiders.—Spiders vary greatly in the average
number of eggs laid by different species, and within the limits of each
species there is a very considerable variation in fertility. As a rule it
appears that the large and vigorous spiders are more prolific than the
smaller and weaker members of the order. Were all the facts before
us, however, we should no doubt find that the number of eggs laid
bore a direct proportion, not to the size of the species, but to the
dangers to which the young of that species are exposed. Where the
total numerical strength of a species is fairly stationary, such a
proportion must of course exist. Some species, no doubt, are tending
to become extinct, while others are increasing in numerical
importance. As a general rule, however, it is safe to infer that, if a
species is especially prolific, special dangers attend the rearing of the
young. The largest of North American Epeirids, Argiope cophinaria,
[287]
constructs a cocoon containing, on an average, 1150 eggs. As
many as 2200 have been counted in exceptional cases. Even this
number is exceeded in the case of some of the great Aviculariidae.
Theraphosa leblondi deposits as many as 3000 eggs. The large
European Epeirids, E. quadrata and E. diademata, lay about 600
eggs, those of Lycosa narbonensis reaching about the same number.
Those American spiders which have been described as stringing up a
series of cocoons in their webs usually attain about the same
aggregate, the eggs being less numerous in each cocoon.
These are examples of fairly large and fertile spiders. In the case of
other species the number of eggs laid is exceedingly small. Ero
furcata makes a single cocoon containing six eggs. Synageles picata,
an ant-like Attid, lays only three. Oonops pulcher constructs several
cocoons, but each contains only two eggs. The eggs of Cave-spiders,
and such as live in dark and damp places, are generally few in
number. Anthrobia mammouthia, for example, an inhabitant of the
great American caves, deposits only from two to five eggs.
Our knowledge of the special perils which beset particular species
is so incomplete that we are often at a loss for the reason of this great
inequality in fertility. For instance, how does Synageles picata
maintain its numerical strength by laying only three eggs, when, as
M‘Cook points out, its resemblance to the ant, though advantageous
to the adult spider, affords no protection to the egg? Our knowledge
must be greatly extended before we are able to account for particular
cases. Many influences hostile to spiders as a group are, however,
well known, and we may here enumerate them.
Natural Enemies.—The precautions taken by the mother in
constructing the cocoon render the inclemency of the weather very
much less destructive to the eggs than to the newly-hatched young.
Nevertheless, among spiders inhabiting swampy regions great havoc
is wrought by the occasional wholesale swamping of the cocoons by
floods. Professor Wilder considers the great fertility of Nephila
plumipes necessary to counterbalance the immense destruction
worked by the heavy rains upon their cocoons, which are washed in
great numbers from the trees, to the leaves of which they are
attached. But such exposed situations are avoided by many species,
and their eggs, enclosed in their silken envelope, are well protected
against the severities of the weather.
A more universal enemy to the egg is found in Ichneumon flies. On
examining the cocoons of almost any species of spider, a large
proportion are almost certain to be found to contain Ichneumon
larvae. Mr. F. Smith, in the Transactions of the Entomological
Society for 1860, describes two species, Hemeteles fasciatus and H.
formosus, which are parasitic on the eggs of Agelena brunnea. They
are figured in Mr. Blackwall’s book on British Spiders. Pezomachus
gracilis attacks the cocoons of many kinds of American spiders,
appearing to have no special preference for any particular species,
while Acoloides saitidis seems to pay special attention to the eggs of
certain of the Jumping-spiders, and particularly of Saitis pulex.
The Ichneumons which thus regard the Spider’s eggs as
convenient food for their own larvae are probably very numerous.
Nor are they themselves always free from parasites. Occasionally the
larvae of minute Hymenopterous insects are found to be parasitic
upon the eggs of an Ichneumon which have been laid in a Spider’s
cocoon.
It sometimes happens that the development of the young spiders
has so far advanced at the time of the Ichneumon’s intrusion that the
latter’s intention is frustrated, and its offspring, instead of devouring,
are themselves devoured. Again, some few of the eggs in an infested
cocoon occasionally escape the general destruction and reach the
adult condition, but there can be no doubt that Ichneumons are
largely instrumental in keeping down the numbers of most species of
spiders. The perils which attend the Spider after leaving the cocoon
are no less formidable, and much more numerous. The whole newly-
hatched brood may be destroyed by a heavy rain-storm. If there is
not a sufficient supply of food suitable to their feeble digestive
powers they perish of inanition, or eat one another. This
cannibalistic propensity is a considerable factor in the mortality
among young spiders, and the adult animals frequently prey upon
one another.
Argyrodes piraticum, in California, invades the webs of larger
spiders of the family Epeiridae, which it seizes and devours. A.
trigonum, common in the eastern states of North America, has the
same habit.[288] Hentz found in Alabama a spider, which he named
Mimetus interfector, of still more ferocious and piratical habits. Its
special quarry is Theridion tepidariorum. Sometimes the Theridion
overcomes the invader, and one case was observed in which a second
Mimetus was devouring a Theridion beside the dead body of its
predecessor, who had come off the worse in the combat.
The eggs of Theridion tepidariorum are also sometimes devoured
by this spider, and a similar propensity has been observed in some
English species, for Staveley[289] states that it is common to see
certain spiders of the genus Clubiona feeding upon the eggs which
have been laid by their neighbours. The larvae of some
Hymenopterous insects are parasitic upon Spiders themselves, and
not upon their eggs. Blackwall found this to be the case with the
larvae of Polysphincta carbonaria, an Ichneumon which selects
spiders of the genera Epeira and Linyphia on which to deposit its
eggs.[290] The spider thus infested does not moult, and is soon
destroyed by the parasite which it is unable to dislodge from its back.
Menge, in his Preussische Spinnen, enumerates several cases of
parasitism in which the larva, as soon as it has developed from the
egg, enters the spider’s body, there to continue its growth. Spiders
are also subject to the attack of a parasitic worm, Gordius (cf. vol. ii.
p. 173).
Some of the most deadly foes of Spiders are the Solitary Wasps.
There are many species of Pompilus (vol. vi. p. 101), which, having
excavated holes in clay banks, store them with spiders or other
creatures which they have paralysed by their sting. They then deposit
an egg in the hole, and immediately seal up the orifice. This habit is
found to characterise the solitary wasps of all parts of the world.
Belt[291] relates the capture of a large Australian spider by a wasp.
While dragging its victim along, it was much annoyed by the
persistent presence of two minute flies, which it repeatedly left its
prey to attempt to drive away. When the burrow was reached and the
spider dragged into it, the two flies took up a position on either side
of the entrance, doubtless with the intention of descending and
laying their own eggs as soon as the wasp went away in search of a
new victim. Fabre[292] gives an interesting account of one of the
largest European Pompilidae, Calicurgus annulatus, which he
observed dragging a “Tarentula” to a hole in a wall. Having with
great difficulty introduced its burden into the cavity, the wasp
deposited an egg, sealed up the orifice, and flew away. Fabre opened
the cell and removed the spider, which, though completely paralysed,
lived for seven weeks.
The same indefatigable observer describes the method adopted by
the comparatively small Pompilus apicalis in attacking the
formidable Wall-spider, Segestria perfida. The combatants are well
matched, and the issue of the battle would be doubtful if the wasp
did not have recourse to stratagem. Its whole energies are directed
towards forcing the spider away from its web. At home, it is
confident and dangerous; when once dislodged, it appears
bewildered and demoralised. The wasp darts suddenly towards the
spider and seizes it by a leg, with a rapid effort to jerk it forth,
releasing its hold before the enemy has had time to retaliate. The
spider, however, as well as being anchored by a thread from its
spinnerets, is clinging to its web with its hind legs, and if the jerk is
not sufficiently energetic, it hastily scrambles back and resumes its
defensive position. Before renewing the attack the wasp gives the
spider time to recover from the excitement of the first onset, seeking,
meanwhile, the retreats of other victims. Returning, it succeeds, by a
more skilful effort, in drawing the spider from its retreat and hurling
it to the ground, where, terrified and helpless, it falls an easy prey.
Should the insect bungle in its first attack and become entangled in
the web, it would itself become the victim. Certain wasps thus appear
to seek out particular species of spiders as food for their larvae.
Others are less discriminate in their tastes. Again, some, as in the
cases cited above, store their egg-nest with a single spider, while
others collect many for the purpose.
The American “blue digger wasp” (Chlorion caeruleum) excavates
its nest in the ground, and inserts a single large spider of any species.
[293]
Another wasp, of the genus Elis, selects the Wolf-spiders, and
especially Lycosa tigrina, for the use of its larvae, while Priocnemus
pomilius shows a preference for the Crab-spiders, or Thomisidae.
One of the most remarkable instances is that of Pepsis formosa,
which preys upon the gigantic spider Eurypelma hentzii, wrongly
styled in America the “tarantula,” but really belonging to an entirely
different family, the Aviculariidae.
Fabre’s most interesting researches have established the fact that
the instinct of the wasp leads it to sting the spider in a particular
spot, so as to pierce the nerve-ganglion in the thorax. The precision
with which this is effected is absolutely necessary for the purpose of
the insect. If stung elsewhere, the spider is either incompletely
paralysed, or it is killed outright, and thus rendered useless as food
for the future larvae of the wasp. On the one hand, therefore, the
Tarantula has acquired the habit of striking the wasp in the only
point where its blow is instantaneously fatal, while on the other the
wasp, with a different object in view, has been led to select the
precise spot where its sting will disable without immediately
destroying the spider. The latter case is, if anything, the more
extraordinary, as the insect can hardly have any recollection of its
larval tastes, and yet it stores up for progeny, which it will never see,
food which is entirely abhorrent to itself in its imago state.
Spiders taken from the egg-nests of wasps by M‘Cook survived, on
the average, about a fortnight, during which period they remained
entirely motionless, and would retain any attitude in which they were
placed.
There are many animals which either habitually or occasionally
feed upon spiders. They are the staple food of some hummingbirds,
and many other birds appear to find in them a pleasing variation on
their customary insect diet. These creatures, moreover, are
destructive to spiders in another way, by stealing the material of
their webs, and especially the more closely textured silk of their egg-
cocoons, to aid in the construction of their nests. M‘Cook has
observed this habit in the case of Vireo noveborocensis, and he
states, on the authority of others, that the “Plover” and the “Wren”
are addicted to it. The smaller species of monkeys are extremely fond
of spiders, and devour large numbers of them. They are said,
moreover, to take a mischievous delight in pulling them in pieces.
Armadillos, ant-eaters, snakes, lizards, and indeed all animals of
insectivorous habit, draw no distinction between Insecta and
Arachnida, but feed upon both indiscriminately. The army ants, so
destructive to insect life in tropical countries, include spiders among
their victims. These formidable insects march along in vast hordes,
swarming over and tearing in pieces any small animal which lies in
their path. They climb over intervening obstacles, searching every
cranny, and stripping them bare of animal life. Insects which attempt
to save themselves by flight are preyed upon by the birds, which are
always to be seen hovering above the advancing army. The spider’s
only resource is to hang from its thread in mid-air beneath the
branch over which the ants are swarming, for the spider line is
impracticable to the ant. Belt[294] has observed a spider escape the
general destruction by this means.
Protective Coloration.—Examples are numerous in which the
spider relies upon the inconspicuousness not of its nest, but of itself,
to escape its natural foes. Its general hues and markings are either
such as to render it not readily distinguishable among its ordinary
surroundings, or the principle has been carried still further, and a
special object has been “mimicked” with more or less fidelity.
This country is not rich in the more striking mimetic forms, but
the observer cannot fail to notice a very general correspondence in
hue between the spiders of various habits of life and their
environment. Those which run on the ground are usually dull-
coloured; tree-living species affect grey and green tints, and those
which hunt their food amongst sand and stones are frequently so
mottled with yellow, red, and grey, that they can scarcely be
recognised except when in motion.
A few of our indigenous species may be mentioned as especially
protected by their colour and conformation. Tibellus oblongus is a
straw-coloured spider with an elongated body, which lives among
dry grass and rushes. When alarmed it clings closely to a dry stem,
remains motionless, and escapes observation by its peculiarity of
colour and shape. Misumena vatia, another of the Thomisidae or
Crab-spiders, approximates in colour to the flowers in which it is
accustomed to lurk on the watch for prey. It is of a variable hue,
generally yellow or pink, and some observers believe that they have
seen it gently waving its anterior legs in a way which made them
easily mistaken for the stamens of the flower stirred by the breeze.
Its purpose appears to be to deceive, not its enemies, but its victims.
It seems to be partial to the blooms of the great mullein (Verbascum
thapsus), and Pickard-Cambridge has more than once seen it seize
and overcome a bee which had visited the flower in search of honey.
He has also observed it in the blossoms of rose and furze bushes.[295]
An Epeirid (Tetragnatha extensa) resembles Tibellus in its
method of concealing itself when alarmed. It also possesses an
elongated abdomen, of a grey-green tint, which it closely applies to
one of the twigs among which it has stretched its net, at the same
time extending its four long anterior legs straight before it, and in
this position it lies perdu, and is very easily overlooked. Another
Orb-weaver, Epeira cucurbitina, is of an apple-green colour, which is
admirably calculated to conceal it among the leaves which surround
its snare.
Most of our English Attidae, or Jumping-spiders, imitate closely
the prevailing tone of the surfaces on which they are accustomed to
hunt. This will be recognised in the familiar striped Wall-spider,
Salticus scenicus, and we may also mention the grey Attus
pubescens, which affects stone walls, and the speckled Attus saltator,
which is hardly distinguishable from the sand which it searches for
food.
Examples may also be found among the Lycosidae or Wolf-spiders.
Of the prettily variegated Lycosa picta, Pickard-Cambridge says:
“Much variation exists in the extent of the different portions of the
pattern and in their depth of colouring, these often taking their
prevailing tint from the colour of the soil in which the spider is
found. The best marked, richest coloured, and largest examples are
found on sandy and gravelly heaths, where there is considerable
depth and variety of colouring.... But on the uniformly tinted greyish-
yellow sandhills between Poole and Christchurch I have found a
dwarf, pale yellow-brown variety, with scarcely any dark markings on
it at all, the legs being of a uniform hue, and wholly destitute of dark
annuli.”[296]
Mimicry.—In the island of Portland, a locality remarkable for the
number of species peculiar to itself, there is found a spider, Micaria
scintillans, very closely resembling a large blackish ant which
frequents the same neighbourhood. Its movements, moreover, are
exceedingly ant-like, as it hurries along in a zigzag course, frequently
running up and down grass stems after the manner of those insects.
It is a great lover of sunshine, and disappears as soon as the sun is
obscured by a passing cloud.
Such resemblances, obvious enough in nature, and heightened by
the behaviour of the mimetic form, are often by no means striking in
the cabinet. In some American species of spiders, however, imitation
of the ant has passed beyond the stage of a general resemblance as
regards size and colour and method of progression. The head of the
ant is well marked off from the body, and the thorax is frequently
divided into distinct regions. These peculiarities are imitated by
constrictions in the cephalothorax of mimetic spiders. The
resemblance, moreover, is much increased by their habit of using but
six legs for locomotion, and carrying the second pair as ants do their
antennae. The best known examples of these spiders are Synageles
picata and Synemosyna formica (see Fig. 215, C, p. 420), and even
more striking resemblances have been observed among some
undescribed South American species.
 The object of such mimicry seems to vary in different cases.
Sometimes the spider preys upon the ant which it resembles.
Sometimes, again, by its disguise, it escapes the notice of the ant
which would otherwise feed upon it. More often spider and ant are
neutral as regards each other, but, under cover of its resemblance,
the Arachnid is enabled to approach an unsuspecting victim to which
the ant is not a terror. Again, the unpleasantly acid taste of ants is
unpalatable to most birds, though not to all, and the increased
danger from specially ant-eating birds may be more than
counterbalanced by the immunity they acquire from other birds.
There is quite a large class of Spiders of nocturnal habits, whose
only precaution by day is to sit perfectly still and be mistaken for
something else. We have referred to the adaptation in colour of our
English species, Misumena vatia, to the flowers in which it lies in
wait for prey. Bates[297] mentions exotic examples of the same family
which mimic flower-buds in the axils of leaves. Herbert Smith says of
a spider which sits upon a leaf waiting for prey: “The pink three-
lobed body appears just like a withered flower that might have fallen
from the tree above; to the flies, no doubt, the deception is increased
by the strong sweet odour, like jasmine.”
Trimen[298] describes a Cape Town species which is of the exact
rose-red of the flower of the oleander. “To more effectually conceal it,
the palpi, top of the cephalothorax, and four lateral stripes on the
abdomen are white, according remarkably with the irregular white
markings so frequent on the petals of Nerium.”
The same observer, approaching a bush of the yellow-flowered
Senecio pubigera, noticed that two of the numerous butterflies
settled upon it did not fly away with their companions. Each of these
he found to be in the clutches of a spider, whose remarkable
resemblance to the flower lay not only in its colour, but in the
attitude it assumed. “Holding on to the flower-stalk by the two
hinder pairs of legs, it extended the two long front pairs upward and
laterally. In this position it was scarcely possible to believe that it was
not a flower seen in profile, the rounded abdomen representing the
central mass of florets, and the extended legs the ray florets; while, to
complete the illusion, the femora of the front pair of legs, adpressed
to the thorax, have each a longitudinal red stripe which represents
the ferruginous stripe on the sepals of the flower.”
 Cambridge found in Palestine some species of Thomisidae which,
when at rest, were indistinguishable from bits of coarse fleecy wool,
or the rough seeds of some plant.
There is perhaps no more curious case of mimicry than that of a
spider, Phrynarachne (= Ornithoscatoides) decipiens, which Forbes
discovered in Java while butterfly-hunting. It appears that butterflies
of the Family Hesperidae have a custom of settling, for reasons best
known to themselves, upon the excreta of birds, dropped upon a leaf.
Forbes noticed one in this position. Creeping up, he seized the
butterfly, but found it mysteriously glued by the feet. On further
investigation the “excreta” proved to be a spider. So accurate was the
mimicry that he was again completely deceived by the same species
in Sumatra. Its habit is to weave upon a leaf a small white patch of
web, of a shape which greatly assists the deception, and in the midst
of this it lies on its back, holding on by the spines with which its legs
are furnished. It then folds its legs over its thorax, and waits for some
insect to settle upon it.
In rare cases spiders have come to resemble their enemies the
Ichneumon flies. A frequent habit of these insects is to deposit their
eggs in the newly-formed cocoon of the spider. The Ichneumon eggs
are the first to hatch, and the larvae have a convenient food-supply at
hand. Sometimes, however, they adopt another method, and insert
their eggs into the body of the spider itself. It is probably in order to
avoid this unpleasant contingency that the spider has evinced
towards the Ichneumon the sincerest form of flattery.

The Senses of Spiders.

Sight.—Though, as has been shown, spiders are well provided

with eyes, their power of vision, in most cases, is by no means
remarkable. As might be expected, it is less developed in those of
sedentary than in those of nomadic habit.
It is noticeable that, in most spiders, some of the eyes are of a
pearly grey colour, and others of a much darker hue. Simon
designates the former nocturnal and the latter diurnal eyes,
according to the special use which he believes them to subserve.
 This view of the matter cannot be regarded as at all established,
and has not found general acceptation. Moreover, Pillai[299] has
shown that certain Attid spiders can change the colour of their eyes
by a movement of the internal mechanism. The Epeiridae, spinners
of the round web, are certainly, as a rule, very dim-sighted creatures.
A fly may be held within an inch of them, but, unless it buzz, it will
excite no notice whatever. A careful observation of the performances
of the large Garden-spider in securing her prey will soon convince
the onlooker that she is guided almost entirely by appeals to her
sense of touch communicated along the tremulous lines of her snare.
Interpreting these too hastily, she will sometimes rush straight past
the entangled fly, and wait for it to renew its struggles before making
sure of its whereabouts. Keen sight would be of little utility to such
spiders, as they are concerned with nothing beyond the limits of their
snare, and within its range they are furnished with the equivalent of
complete telegraphic communication.
That most of the vagabond spiders can see well within the range of
several inches there is no doubt, though some observers have been
misled by the result of certain experiments on the Lycosidae, or
“Wolf-spiders.” It will be remembered that the female Lycosid carries
her egg-bag about with her, attached usually to her spinnerets. If it
be removed and placed close at hand, the spider experiences the
greatest difficulty in finding it again. Lubbock attributed this to
defective sight, whereas it merely arises from unfamiliarity with the
appearance of the egg-bag, which, since its construction, has been so
situated as to be out of the view of the spider. Peckham found that
spiders of the genus Theridion, accustomed to the sight of their
cocoons, readily recognised them by that sense when removed to a
distance.
The most keen-sighted of the spider tribe are undoubtedly the
Attidae, or Leaping-spiders. The little black and white striped Wall-
spider, Salticus scenicus, is probably a familiar object to most of our
readers, and a very little observation of its movements, like those of a
cat stalking a bird, will convince the observer that its visual powers
are wonderfully keen and accurate. Its attitude of “attention” on
sighting its prey, its stealthy manœuvring to approach it unobserved,
and the unerring certainty of its final leap, are very interesting to
witness.
 It is somewhat noticeable that both in the Epeiridae and in the
Attidae the two portions of the body, cephalothorax and abdomen,
have more than the usual freedom of independent motion. In the
Orb-weavers this gives play to the spinnerets in binding up a
captured insect, but in the Leaping-spiders it allows of the rapid
directing of the large anterior eyes towards the quarry, as it
continually alters its position.
Professor and Mrs. Peckham of Wisconsin[300] performed some
interesting experiments to ascertain the sensitiveness of the spider’s
eye to colour. Freely communicating compartments of differently
coloured glass were constructed, and spiders were confined in them,
when it was found that red was the most and blue the least attractive
hue. This agrees well with what Lubbock found to be the case with
ants, but those insects displayed a greater antipathy for blue and not
so marked a preference for red.
Hearing.—Most of our knowledge about the auditory sense of
spiders is due to experiments performed by C. V. Boys,[301] and
repeated by Professor and Mrs. Peckham.
The spider usually responds to the stimulus in one of two ways; it
either raises its front legs, extending them in the direction of the
sound, or it allows itself to drop suddenly, as though in alarm. It was
only in the case of the Epeiridae that any results were obtained, and
these spiders were more sensitive to low than to high notes. Now, as
M‘Cook points out, it is exceedingly strange that the nomadic and
hunting spiders, to which the sense of hearing might be expected to
be extremely useful, should be deficient in this faculty, while the
sedentary spiders, to which it would appear comparatively
unimportant, should possess it in a tolerably developed form. That
writer may possibly be correct in supposing that the sense, as
possessed by spiders, is hardly differentiated from that of ordinary
touch, and that the web-making species are only aware of sounds by
the vibrations communicated to their feet by the medium of the web.
However this may be, we must reluctantly but sternly reject the
numerous and seemingly authentic stories, often connected with
historic personages, which credit the spider with a cultivated taste
for music.
We have seen that among the spiders which possess a stridulating
apparatus it is confined, in certain groups, to the male, or if present
in the female it exists only in a rudimentary form. If in these cases
stridulation has been rightly interpreted as a sexual call, the power of
hearing, at least in the female, is of course connoted. The spiders in
question are members of the Theridiidae, a family closely allied to
the Epeiridae, and therefore more likely than most groups to possess
the power of hearing.
Theraphosid spiders show no response to the stimulus of sound,
and among them stridulation is not confined to one sex. If, as is
generally believed, the organ is used to warn off enemies, it is not
necessary that the sound produced should be audible to the spider
itself. If there be any true hearing organ in spiders its location is
quite uncertain. Some have supposed the so-called lyriform organs in
the legs to have an auditory function, while others have supposed the
power of hearing to reside in certain hairs, of which there are several
different types distributed over the body and limbs of the animal.
Spider Intelligence.—The experiments performed by the
Peckhams clearly proved that spiders have short memories—a sure
indication of a low state of intelligence. Members of the Lycosid or
“Wolf-spider” group, when deprived of their cocoons, recognised
them again after a few hours, but in most instances they refused to
resume them after a lapse of twenty-four hours, and in every case an
absence of two days sufficed to prevent any sign of recognition on
their restoration. Moreover, when, after a shorter interval, the
cocoons of other spiders, even of different genera, were offered to
them, they appeared equally satisfied, and attached them in the
orthodox manner, beneath the abdomen. The same treatment was
even accorded to pith balls, which, if of the right size, seemed to be a
perfectly satisfactory substitute. The contents of one cocoon were
replaced by a shot three or four times their weight, but the spider
accepted it with alacrity, spending half an hour in refixing it, when its
weight caused it to fall from its attachment.
The habit of “feigning death,” which seems to be especially
characteristic of the Epeiridae or orb-weaving spiders, probably
arises from no desire to deceive its adversary as to its condition, but
from an instinct to remain motionless, and therefore inconspicuous.
Where a nomadic spider seeks safety in flight, a sedentary species
finds a greater chance of escape in dropping a certain distance, and,
while still attached by its silken line, giving as little evidence of its
whereabouts as possible—trusting, in many cases, to its protective
colouring. This method, moreover, has the advantage of facilitating
its return to the web when the danger is past—a feat of which it
would be quite incapable were it once to relinquish its clue.
All the remarkable and apparently intelligent actions of these
creatures seem to be done in obedience to a blind instinct, which is
obeyed even when there is no longer any object to be served. We
have seen how the Trap-door spiders decorate the lids of their nests
with moss even when the surrounding ground is bare, and Agelena
labyrinthica has been observed to go through the whole lengthy and
laborious operation of constructing its egg-cocoon though all its eggs
were removed immediately on being laid.[302]
Mating Habits.—The sex of a mature spider can readily be
recognised by the palpus which, as we have seen, is furnished in the
male with a “palpal organ.” After the last moult but one the palp
appears tumid, but it is only at the last moult that the organ is fully
formed, and that the genital orifice is visible under the anterior part
of the abdomen.
No alteration takes place in the female palp at maturity, but it is
only after the last moult that the “epigyne” is distinguishable.
That the palpal organs are used in the fertilisation of the female
has long been established. How they came to contain the sperm
matured in the abdomen was a problem which has only been solved
comparatively recently. No direct connection could be found by way
of the palpus with the abdominal organs, which, indeed, were seen to
have an orifice between the lung-sacs. It is now known that some
spiders at all events spin a slight web upon which they deposit a drop
of spermatic fluid, which they afterwards absorb into their palpal
organs for transference to the female. Secondary sexual differences
are often very marked, the male being almost invariably the smaller
in body, though its legs are frequently longer and more powerful
than those of the female.
Among some of the sedentary spiders the disparity in size is
excessive. The most striking examples are furnished by the Epeirid
genera Argiope and Nephila, the male in some instances not
attaining more than the thousandth part of the mass of the female.
The coloration of the sexes is frequently quite dissimilar, the male
being usually the darker, though
in the Attidae he is in many cases
the more strikingly ornamented.
In the minute Theridiid spiders
of the group Erigoninae (see p.
404), the male cephalothorax
often presents remarkable and
characteristic excrescences not
observable in the female. Some
curious examples of this
phenomenon may be seen in Fig.
209.
To the ordinary observer male
spiders will appear to be
comparatively rare, and to be
greatly outnumbered by the
females. This is probably to some
degree true, but the unsettled
habits of the males and the
shorter duration of their life are
calculated to give an exaggerated
impression of their rarity. They Fig. 198.—Argiope aurelia, ♂ and ♀ ,
only appear in considerable natural size.
numbers at the mating season,
shortly after which the males, in
the case of many species, may be sought for in vain, as, after
performing their functions, they quickly die. The snares they spin are
often rudimentary, their capabilities in this direction appearing to
deteriorate after the adult form is attained. Young spiders of
indistinguishable sex make perfect snares on a small scale, while
such as eventually develop male organs will often thereafter be
content with a few straggling lines made with very slight regard to
symmetry. They become nomadic in their habits, wandering off in
search of the females, and pitching a hasty tent by the way.
The relations between the sexes in the Spider tribe present points
of extreme interest, but in this connexion the various groups must be
separately treated on account of their very different habits of life.
 In no group are these relations more curious than in the Epeiridae,
the constructors of the familiar wheel-like web. Love-making is no
trifling matter here. If the female is not in the mood for the advances
of the male she will probably regard him as a desirable addition to
her larder. Even if his wooing is accepted, he has to beat a precipitate
retreat after effecting his purpose, or he may fall a victim to his
partner’s hunger.
This strange peril braved by the male in courting the female, which
has, as far as is known, no parallel in any other department of the
animal kingdom, is frequently mentioned as universal among
spiders. It unquestionably exists, and may be verified by any patient
observer in the case of the large Garden-spider Epeira diademata,
but it has only been observed among certain species of the Epeiridae
and Attidae. It will be remembered that in the Epeiridae the males
are sometimes absurdly small in comparison with the females, and
this diminution of size is thought to have a direct connection with the
danger undergone at the mating season. Small active males stand a
better chance of escape from ferocious females, so that natural
selection has acted in the direction of reducing their size as far as is
compatible with the performance of their functions.
Pickard-Cambridge[303] cites an extreme case. He says: “The female
of Nephila chrysogaster, Walck. (an almost universally distributed
tropical Epeirid), measures 2 inches in the length of its body, while
that of the male scarcely exceeds ⅒ th of an inch, and is less than
¹⁄₁₃₀₀th part of her weight.”
During the mating season the males may be looked for on the
borders of the snares of the females. Their action is hesitating and
irresolute, as it well may be, and for hours they will linger on the
confines of the web, feeling it cautiously with their legs, and
apparently trying to ascertain the nature of the welcome likely to be
extended to them. If accepted, they accomplish their purpose by
applying their palps alternately to the epigyne of their mate. If
repulsed, they do their best to make their escape, and wait for a more
auspicious moment. Emerton[304] says: “In these encounters the
males are often injured; they frequently lose some of their legs; and I
have seen one, that had only four out of his eight left, still standing
up to his work.”
 Among the other groups of sedentary spiders the relations between
the sexes seem to be more pacific, and there is even some approach
to domesticity. Males and females of Linyphia may be found during
the mating season living happily together in their irregular snares.
The same harmony seems to exist among the Tube-weavers, and
Agelena labyrinthica lingers for days unmolested about the web of
the female, though it is perhaps hardly correct to say that they have
their home in common.
Among the wandering spiders the male usually seeks out the
female and leaps on her back, from which position his sperm-laden
palps can reach their destination. This is the habit of the Thomisidae
or Crab-spiders, and of the quick-running Wolf-spiders, or
Lycosidae.
The sexual relations of the
Leaping-spiders, or Attidae, are
so remarkable as to deserve a
longer notice. This Family
includes the most beautiful and
highly ornamented examples of
spider life. Their headquarters are
the tropics, and their brilliant
colouring led Wallace to speak of
those he saw in the Malay
Archipelago as “perfect gems of
beauty.”
Now among these spiders the
male is almost always more
highly decorated than the female,
Fig. 199.—Male Astia vittata dancing and Peckham’s observations
before the female. (After Peckham.) would lead to the conclusion that
the female is influenced by the
display of these decorations in the selection of her mate.
The so-called “love-dances” of certain tropical birds are known to
all readers of natural history, but it was hardly to be expected that
their counterpart would exist among spiders. Yet the antics by which
male Attidae endeavour to attract the attention of the females afford
an almost exact parallel.
 The following extract from the account of Professor and Mrs.
Peckham[305] of their observations on Saitis pulex will make this
abundantly clear: “When some four inches from her he stood still,
and then began the most remarkable performances that an amorous
male could offer to an admiring female. She eyed him eagerly,
changing her position from time to time, so that he might be always
in view. He, raising his whole body on one side by straightening out
the legs, and lowering it on the other by folding the first two pairs of
legs up and under, leaned so far over as to be in danger of losing his
balance, which he only maintained by sidling rapidly towards the
lowered side.... Again and again he circles from side to side, she
gazing towards him in a softer mood, evidently admiring the grace of
his antics. This is repeated until we have counted a hundred and
eleven circles made by the ardent little male. Now he approaches
nearer and nearer, and when almost within reach whirls madly
around and around her, she joining with him in a giddy maze. Again
he falls back and resumes his semicircular motions, with his body
tilted over; she, all excitement, lowers her head and raises her body
so that it is almost vertical; both draw nearer; she moves slowly
under him, he crawling over her head, and the mating is
accomplished.”
A similar but not exactly
identical performance was gone
through by the male of several
different species, but it was
noteworthy that the particular
attitudes he adopted were always
such as to display to the best
advantage his special beauties,
whether they consisted in crested Fig. 200.—Dancing attitude of male
head, fringed palpi and fore-legs, Icius mitratus. (After Peckham.)
or iridescent abdomen.
Sometimes even such exertions failed to captivate the female, and
she would savagely attack the male, occasionally with fatal effect.
In the case of some species, when the male had won the consent of
his mate, he would weave a small nuptial tent or web, into which he
would partly lead and partly drive the female, who no longer offered
serious resistance.
 Fossil Spiders.

About 250 species of fossil spiders have been discovered. Of these

about 180 are embedded in amber, a fossil resinous substance which
exuded from ancient coniferous trees, and quantities of which are
annually washed up from the Baltic upon the shores of northern
Prussia.
The most ancient fossil spider known was obtained from the
argillaceous slate of Kattowitz in Silesia, and belongs, therefore, to
the Carboniferous strata of the Palaeozoic epoch. It has been named
Protolycosa anthrocophila. There is some doubt as to the affinities
of this spider. Roemer, who described it, placed it among the
Citigradae, while others have thought it to belong rather to the
Territelariae. Thorell, on account of its agreement in certain
important points with the very curious recent Malay spider
Liphistius, has placed them both in a separate sub-family,
Liphistioidae. To the same epoch belongs the American fossil spider
Arthrolycosa antiqua, which was found in the Coal measures of
Illinois.
The other localities from which fossil spiders have been obtained
are the Swiss Miocene at Oeningen, the Oligocene deposits at Aix,
the Oligocene of Florissant, Colorado, Green River, Wyoming, and
Quesnel, British Columbia.
Many of the spiders from the rocks are so fragmentary that it is
impossible to decide with certainty on their systematic position, but
a considerable number of them—more than half—have been assigned
to recent genera.
The amber spiders are mostly well preserved, and can be classified
with more certainty. Many of them are surprisingly like existing
forms, though others, like Archaea paradoxa, differ greatly from
most spiders now extant, though they show some affinities with one
or two remarkable and aberrant forms.
 CHAPTER XV
ARACHNIDA EMBOLOBRANCHIATA
(CONTINUED)—ARANEAE (CONTINUED)—
CLASSIFICATION

The systematic study of Spiders has hitherto presented very great

difficulties. There is an extensive literature on the subject, but the
more important works are costly, not commonly to be found in
libraries, and written in diverse languages. Moreover, the
nomenclature is only now emerging from a condition of chaos. Able
and diligent Arachnologists have done admirable work in studying
and describing the Spider fauna of their various countries, and
occasional tentative suggestions have been put forth with a view to
reducing to some sort of order the vast mass of heterogeneous
material thus collected. Most schemes of classification, based chiefly
upon a knowledge of European forms, have proved quite inadequate
for the reception of the vast numbers of strange exotic species with
which recent years have made us acquainted. The number of
described species is very large, and is rapidly increasing; but though
we are very far indeed from anything like an exhaustive knowledge of
existing forms, it may now be said that almost every considerable
area of the earth’s surface is at least partially represented in the
cabinets of collectors, and it is possible to take a comprehensive view
of the whole Spider fauna, and to suggest a scheme of classification
very much less likely than heretofore to be fundamentally deranged
by new discoveries.
The first to apply the Linnaean nomenclature to Spiders was
Clerck, in his Araneae Suecicae (1757), which gives an account of
seventy spiders, some of which are varieties of the same species. A
few new species were added by Linnaeus, De Geer, Scopoli,
Fabricius, etc., but the next work of real importance was that of
Westring (1861), who, under the same title, described 308 species,
divided among six families. Blackwall’s beautiful work, the Spiders of
Great Britain and Ireland, was published by the Ray Society in 1864.
He divides spiders into three tribes, Octonoculina, Senoculina, and