COCOON LIFE AND BABYHOOD. 213 



skill, and all parts are perfected. By tliis time the body is covered with 

 hair and they possess claws and bristles ; they crawl about and begin to 

 spin, but remain in the neighborhood of the cocoon. They have as yet 

 no need for food, as sutBcient yelk is deposited in their bodies for present 

 wants. 



After six or eight days the second moulting takes place, and they now 

 begin to feel hungry, and, when nothing else offers, attack each other, the 

 strong devouring the weak. Menge also noticed that when kept impris- 

 oned they will even eat the old skin; but when at liberty neither of these 

 extreme measures take place, as a general thing, inasmuch as plenty of 

 food is found around the place of their birth. At this time each aranead 

 supports itself as Nature ordained, and, its appetite becoming ravenous, it 

 rapidly increases in size and development. For this reason Menge never 

 succeeded in carrying young ones, hatched in a glass, over this period and 

 he doubts whether it can be done at all, even taking foreign varieties (such 

 as American) for the purpose. He tried Le Bon's experiment, feeding them 

 from quills tilled with blood of young pigeons, but without success. A few 

 of them may suck the blood, Ijut most of them pay no attention whatever 

 to this unnaturally served food. Most grown spiders j)rosent the same dif- 

 ficulty, preferring to starve to death rather than accept food which they 

 do not fancy; even the very insects on which they live when free are re- 

 fused if not caught by themselves. 



Menge often tried to bring to maturity a yet undescribed spider (Me- 

 lanophora), which he found rarely, and always full grown; but in this he 

 failed. Although the glass was filled with flies, mosquitoes, po- 

 Rearhier '^"'''*' ^^'^■' ^^^^ spider left them untouched, and finally both in- 

 Difficult. ^^^*'^ ''^^^^ spider died. The same result attended efforts with 

 Saltigrades. Lineweavers and Tubeweavers were much easier to 

 feed, as they attack everything that falls into their welj when not too large 

 or too much against their taste. The easiest to keej) in captivity are the 

 Lycosids, which become tame and will take flies offered to them in the 

 hand.' 



IV. 



After the rigors of winter have been successfully endured, the warm 

 days of spring first hasten the process of hatching, and then tempt the 



spiderlings from their cocoon. I have repeatedly observed, dur- 

 Life '^^S ^ series of years, the issuing of broods and their behavior 



immediately thereafter. The observations have been under fa- 

 vorable conditions within doors, and also out of doors from cocoons trans- 

 ferred from their original site and affixed to branches of shrubbery, and a 

 few in original site. The young of various species representing Orbweavers, 



' Menge, " Preussische Spinnen." 



