Myers. — Bionomic Notes on some New Zealand Spiders. 253 



but with these materials forming a network a short distance in front of it, 

 so that an intruder would thread the maze and discover the entrance only 

 with the greatest difficulty. With scissors I carefully cut away this labyrinth 

 and widened the entrance ; then cut down the side and spread out the nest 

 book-wise. On one side, down the length of the nest was an irregular mass 

 of white faintly green-tinged eggs, surrounded by a silk sheet which bound 

 them tightly to the main fabric. Unlike those of some spiders, the eggs were 

 not mutually adhesive, but fell apart when their enclosing silk was loosened. 

 The female crouched near by. Another nest contained young spiders in 

 company with their mother. 



Genus Araneus (Epeira). 



Of the common spiders with which I propose to deal here, we come now 

 to this fascinating genus, the garden-spider. The following key will serve 

 to distinguish the egg-cocoons of the commoner members of the genus : — 



Covering, flocculent silk ; shape hemispherical — 



Colour greenish . . . . . . . . A. pustulosus Walck. 



Colour orange . . . . . . . . A. brounl Urq. 



Colour white . . . . . . . . . . A. saxitalis Urq. 



Covering, smooth, white, close-textured silk ; shape irregular, 



varying with exigencies of position . . . . A. crassus Walck. 



Araneus brouni Urquhart. 



This species is the largest Epeira in the Wanganui district, and, as 

 most specimens show a more or less distinct crescent on the surface of 

 the abdomen, near the cephalothorax, I call it the " crescent Epeira." 

 A nest was built in captivity in a single night in February. The ball of 

 salmon-pink eggs was covered and securely fastened to the side of the jar 

 and to a stick by a soft, thick layer of downy silk which was in parts white 

 and in parts orange. This orange colour was not due to the tint of the 

 eggs showing through the silk. The female was, naturally, much decreased 

 in bulk, was very lethargic, taking no food, so that I thought her work 

 was done and she was about to die. After three days' abstinence, however, 

 she ate daily and well. In twenty-seven days from the time of laying the 

 eggs hatched, and on the same morning I found the mother dead. It would 

 be interesting to know whether she had performed some last office, such 

 as opening the cocoon for the young. The young remained in the same 

 position in the nest and displayed but little signs of life until disturbed, 

 when the whole living ball pulsated in a queer manner, owing to the 

 individual struggles of the minute spiders. In sixteen days from the time of 

 hatching — that is, in the middle of March — the young left the nest. The 

 details of this exodus resemble those so graphically described by Fabre 

 in The Life of the Spider (English translation). In the early morning or 

 previous night the young spiders had swarmed out of the perforated lid of 

 their jar and were scattered over a film-like web fastened at several points to 

 the wall above the nest The web was 3 ft. high, and extended irregularly 

 laterally for nearly 4ft. When touched the tiny spiders immediately 

 dropped, but rapidly climbed to their former positions up the thread they 

 had produced in their descent. Next day some still remained in the 

 jar, but the nest itself was deserted. The web was widened considerably 

 towards the open door of the shed in which the spider was kept, 

 and the young spiders were gradually moving farther from the nest, 



