1909.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 551 



usually between midnight and dawn. A nest is the product of several 

 days of labor and is probably added to and lengthened from time to 

 time. The spiders can barely walk upon smooth glass, even when hori- 

 zontal. They feed within their nests and remove the remains of the 

 food outside. They exhibit death-feigning to a considerable degree. 



To observe the egg-laying a number of individuals were isolated 

 in small vials; groups of others were also placed in large cages each 

 made of two glass panes 12 x 8 inches, separated by a wooden frame 

 I inch thick; food could be introduced and air provided by holes in 

 the wooden frame. 



No egg masses were found in wild nests before 2P June, and the 

 individuals observed had not oviposited. 



The oviposition is carried out within the nest. The entire process was 

 seen in the case of two individuals, and parts of it in other instances. 

 It may be described from the case of 1534 B, caught and placed in a 

 cage on 26 June. On 4 July she spent the afternoon spinning against 

 the inner surface of her nest, thickening it, but making no special cocoon 

 base. At 6 P.M. she became quiet except for a movement of the 

 palpi against the jaws that I first interpreted as a cleaning operation, 

 but watching her attentively with a hand lens, I saw that both palpi 

 were flexed, their free ends rubbing her chelicera rather slowly but 

 regularly, and at 6.11 a minute drop of fluid could be seen at the apices 

 of the chelicera. The two palpi steadily continued to rub the jaws, 

 the chelicera and maxilla? moving backwards and forwards as well 

 as opening and closing, and the drop slowly increased in volume by the 

 addition to it of droplets that merged with it; the drop was viscid, as 

 shown by its form, and evidently issued from the vicinity of the 

 mouth. Thus the drop slowly grew in size, and was slowly pushed 

 caudad beneath her cephalothorax, until it extended like an ovate 

 pearl from the mouth back to the anterior border of the abdomen; it 

 was transparent at the periphery, but more opaque in the centre, 

 while the newly issuing droplets, to be added to it, were all transparent. 

 Consequently the opacity of the interior may have been due to a 

 change in consistency. This process lasted continuously from 6.11 to 

 6.37, then the abdomen was quickly flexed downward slightly, and the 

 viscid drop suddenly clouded — due to successive discharge of the eggs 

 into it. This discharge of the eggs occupied almost 3 minutes. The 

 spider then commenced to sway her body slowly back and forth over 

 the egg mass in the drop, and continued to do so for almost an hour. 

 This movement was the attempt to free her chelicera and the ventral 

 surface of her cephalothorax from the surface of the viscid drop. The 



