SPIDERS. 



107 



FIG. 149. Drassus laying eggs. A. Web. 

 E. Eggs. 



the base of the organ swells up, and presses in the discharge tube, forcing out the 

 contents of the bulb into the spermathecae, from which it escapes, in course of time, by 

 the small tubes into the oviduct, and fertilizes the 

 eggs about the time they are laid. 



When the eggs are mature the female proceeds 

 to make a little web and lays the eggs on it. 

 Then she covers them over with silk, forming a 

 cocoon in which the young remain till some time 

 after they are hatched. The laying of the eggs 

 is seldom seen ; for the spider does it in the 

 night, or in retired places ; and often in confine- 

 ment refuses to lay at all. 



Many spiders make their cocoons against a flat surface, where they remain attached 

 by one side. Attus mystaceus spins, before laying, a thick nest of white silk on the 

 under side of a stone. In this she thickens a circular patch on the upper side, next 

 the stone, and discharges her eggs upward against it. They adhere, and are then 



covered with white silk. JEpeira 

 strix spins, before laying, a bunch 

 of loose silk. She touches her spin- 

 nerets, draws them away a short 

 distance, at the same time pressing 

 upward with the hind feet, then 

 moves the abdomen a little sidewise, 

 and attaches the band of threads so 

 as to form a loop. She keeps making 

 these loops, turning round at the same time so as to form a rounded bunch of them, 

 into the middle of which she afterwards lays the eggs. The eggs, which are like 

 drops of jelly, are held up by the loose threads till the spider has time to spin 

 under them a covering of stronger silk. Epeira vulgaris makes a similar cocoon 

 upward, downward, or sidewise, as may be most convenient. Drassus spins a little 

 web across her nest and drops the eggs on it. They are soft and mixed with liquid, 

 and are discharged in one or tw r o drops like jelly. They quickly soak up the liquid 

 and become dry on the surface, sometimes adhering slightly together. After the 

 eggs are laid this spider covers them with silk, drawing the threads over them from 

 one side to the other, and fastening them to the edges of the web below. When 

 the covering is complete she bites off the threads that hold the cocoon to the nest, and 

 finishes off the edges with her jaws. 



The Lycosiclae make their cocoons in the same way, but rounder, and showing only 

 slightly the seam where the upper part was attached to the lower. The Lycosas carry 

 their cocoons about attached to the spinnerets, 

 bumping them over the stones without injury 

 to the young inside. The large species of 

 Argiope makes a big pear-shaped cocoon 

 hanging in grass or bushes. These are made 

 late in the summer, and the young stay in 

 them till the next season. Out of six hun- 

 dred cocoons collected by Wilder in the spring less than a quarter were entire, the 

 rest being pierced or torn in some way by birds or insects, so that the spiders were 



FIG. 150. Attus mystaceus laying eggs. 



FIG. 151. Lycosa, with cocoon attached to 

 spinnerets. 



