1909.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 553 



conditions, always seem to have an opening to the nest even when 

 the eggs or young are in it. 



Ariadna thus resembles its congener Dysdera in having no special 

 cocoon for the eggs, 6 though both build nests. This would suggest 

 that the nest may be a racially older structure than the cocoon, and 

 that the Dysderids may be one of the most primitive groups of living 

 araneads. 7 The use of a mouth or salivary secretion to agglutinate 

 the eggs has never been seen before in spiders, though Bertkau (1884, 

 I. c.) has described such a process for the acarine Ixodes. 



3. The Habits of Pisaurina. 



The Pisauridse closely resembles the Lycosidse in structure, but 

 differ from them in being arboreal during the cocooning season rather 

 than terrestrial, and in carrying the cocoon by the chelicera and not 

 suspended from the spinnerets. 



The fullest account of the habits of any Pisaurid is given for the 

 European Dolomedes ftmbriatus Clerk by Pappenheim. 8 He saw the 

 cocooning only once; a spider spun a funnel-shaped cylinder of silk, 

 the closed roof of which was the upper surface of the glass cage; "in 



the cavity so bounded the eggs were laid Immediately after 



the oviposition the cocoon, that was at first cylindrical, took on gradually 

 the form of a hollow sphere from its continuous working by the extremi- 

 ties and the abdomen." Pappenheim does not make it clear whether 

 he saw the actual egg discharge and cocooning, or only the finishing 

 of the cocoon within an infundibular nest, but apparently he saw only 

 the latter. No other naturalist has described the cocoon-making for 

 any member of the family. 



Pisaurina mira (Walck.), more generally known as Ocyale (Microm- 

 mata) undata (Hentz), is unusually abundant in the woodland at 

 Woods Hole, even at places far removed from water, though those 

 kept in cages require water daily. Males are very rare (I have seen 

 only one, from the collection of Mr. Emerton), and not a single one was 

 found during the past summer. The large, white, globular cocoons of 

 this species are well known, and so are the nests that the mother spins 

 around the young at the time of hatching, and have been sufficiently 



8 According to Simon's statement concerning Dysdera in his Histoire Naturelle 

 des Araignies, 2d ed., Paris, 1892, T. I, p. 311. 



7 Reasons have been recently presented by me showing that the tetrapneu- 

 monous spiders (Theraphosa?) are not primitive: On the Spinnerets, etc., fYoc. 

 .4 cad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1909. 



8 Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Entwicklungsgeschichte von Dolomedes fimbri- 

 atus Clerck, Zeit. wiss. Zool., 74, 1903. 



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