The Life of the Spider 



the arches of her cloisters; she stops first here, 

 then there; she makes a lengthy auscultation 

 of the egg-wallet; she listens to all that hap- 

 pens inside the satin wrapper. To disturb her 

 would be barbarous. 



For a closer examination, let us use the 

 dilapidated nests which we brought from the 

 fields. Apart from its pillars, the egg-pocket 

 is an inverted conoid, reminding us of the 

 work of the Silky Epeira. Its material is 

 rather stout; my pincers, pulling at it, do not 

 tear it without difficulty. Inside the bag there 

 is nothing but an extremely fine, white wad- 

 ding and, lastly, the eggs, numbering about a 

 hundred and comparatively large, for they 

 measure a millimetre and a half. 1 They are 

 very pale amber-yellow beads, which do not 

 stick together and which roll freely as soon as 

 I remove the swan's-down shroud. Let us put 

 everything into a glass-tube to study the 

 hatching. 



We will now retrace our steps a little. 

 When laying-time comes, the mother forsakes 

 her dwelling, her crater into which her falling 

 victims dropped, her labyrinth in which the 

 flight of the Midges was cut short; she leaves 



1 .05.9 inch. — Translator's Note. 



346 



