8 z6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



expecting to see the vaunted bloodthirstiness which should 

 end in the death of the intruder. How did the friends behave ? 

 They simply avoided her, as one whose ways were unfamiliar. 

 And the stranger did she cower in fear, or show fight ? 

 Neither. Finding herself at liberty and comfortable, she pro- 

 ceeded at once to business, and, when the owner of the menagerie 

 came back after several hours, he found the new-comer had nearly 

 filled the box with her web, while the rightful owners thereof 

 were crowded into a corner, meekly submitting to her usurpation 

 of their quarters. 



Babyhood is almost unknown in the spider world, or at least 

 there is very little of the helplessness of most young creatures. 

 It is hard indeed to believe the terrible tales told by Prof. Wilder 

 of the life that goes on in the family before the nursery doors are 

 opened. He affirms that the cocoon of Epeira riparia contains 

 hundreds, perhaps thousands of eggs, and that the doors of the 

 silken tent are not opened for some weeks after hatching, which 

 is a time of fearful orgies, brother and sister devouring each 

 other, without fighting it is true, but none the less relentlessly 

 enacting the tragedy of the "survival of the fittest." The pro- 

 fessor thinks he is justified in his conclusions, but we can afford 

 to wait for further proof, and not believe it until we must. 



The young arachnid, whatever her cocoon experiences, comes 

 out of that snug home with all her wits about her, and is a very 

 knowing baby indeed. The young trap-door spider very early in 

 life, having attained the size of a large pin's head, makes for her- 

 self in the ground a silk-lined residence, and defends it against 

 friend and foe. The common house spider no sooner leaves the 



home nest than she 



" takes 



Her silken ladders out and makes 



No halt, no secret, scaling where 



She likes, and weaving scaffolds there." 



The garden spider, too, begins life for herself very early, spinning 

 a web as big as a silver quarter, and as pretty as her mamma's. 



The crowning glory of this queen of spinners and weavers is 

 her motherhood. Never was a mother more devoted. In spite of 

 the fact that her family numbers anywhere from one to ten hun- 

 dred, she wraps the eggs snugly in silk, and carries them every- 

 where she goes, or carefully secretes them ; and she defends them 

 with her life. Not one, from the least to the greatest, abandons 

 the helpless infants to an ignorant nurse to be pinched or petted 

 according to the humor of that functionary not one ! 



When the babies outgrow the nursery, she opens the door and 

 sometimes takes them all on her back, though they cover her like 

 a blanket. Then she feeds them, either with ants or flies, which 



