180 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



Night 



Cocoon- 



ing-. 



until the young are hatched. However, it must be said that, with SaUi- 

 grades at least, there is a tendency before cocooning to prepare a perma- 

 nent dwelling tent, to which, when the proper time approaclies, the mother 

 will resort to deposit her eggs. Lycosids also strongly incline to spin and 

 burrow a cocooning house after their kind. But inasmuch as they deport 

 their cocoons, they are apt to move about from site to site with their egg 

 bags dangling at their tails, stalking prey and bivouacking in any con- 

 venient refuge. 



II. 



I infer that female spiders habitually prefer the night or early morn- 

 ing hours for cocooning. At least I have never been able to observe any 

 species laying eggs, although I have frequently and quite per- 

 sistently watched, both in artificial and natural sites, with a view 

 to such observation. I am satisfied that it is within the power 

 of the female to control the maternal function and compel Na- 

 ture to await her pleasure for a considerable length of time. I cannot 

 otherwise well account for some experiences with my captives. Moreover, 

 I have spent many days during the last fourteen or fifteen years in wan- 

 dering among haunts of spiders, north, south, east, and west, in our own 



country and Europe, but have never 

 once surprised a female in the act of 

 ovipositing. This leads me to the con- 

 clusion that spiders must commonly 

 choose the night or early morning as 

 the time for laying their eggs. 



Others, however, have been more 

 fortunate ; and, judging from their ac- 

 counts, and reasoning from the vari- 

 ous stages at which I have partially 

 observed the process, by putting the 

 pieces of observation together, we obtain a tolerably accurate idea of the 

 mother spider's mode of procedure. 



Just before cocooning, the eggs will be found massed within the centre 

 of the abdomen, the ovaries being so greatly distended as to compress and 

 somewhat displace the surrounding and adjacent organs. (Figs. 235 and 

 236.) They are in this state gelatinous bodies, but have a spherical shape 

 even in their soft condition. They are still jelly like objects when ex- 

 truded from the ovaries along the vulval hook or ovipositor, and do not 

 liarden until shortly after they are laid. 



When the mother is prepared to drop her eggs, and has satisfied lierself 

 as to locality, the next step is to prepare either a little sheet, or dish shaped 

 dish, or a flossy tuft of sjiinningwork, against which the eggs are posited. 

 I believe that this is most frequently done upwards in the case of females 



Fig. 235. Fig. 236. 



Fig. 23.'t. Section views of abdomen, to sliow loca- 

 tion of eggs. Fig. 236. Same, witli eggs removed 

 (From alcoholic specimen.) 



