184 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



the 12tli and 13th of July, in a cluster shaped like a raspberry. The 

 eggs were grayish white or pale brown, and varied in shape from globose 

 to oblong. All were very small, the largest one half a line in its greatest 

 length. 



A fortnight later, July 27th, another (.duster of eggs was laid, this time 

 between the hours of 5 and 8 P. M. AVhen the lamp was brought in at 

 the latter hour, Mr. Moggridge perceived wliat he took to be a drop of 

 water hanging from the gauze covering, above and rather in front of the 

 spider's door, the position occupied by the clusters of eggs previously 

 described. On closer inspection this proved to be a droj) of pellucid, 

 colorless liquid, in which some thirty eggs floated. One egg was laid on 

 the gauze at some distance from the main group, and several were also 

 attached to the inside of the tin box. At midnight he found that the 

 drop liad coagulated and contracted, and by the following morning the 

 mass was quite dry and resembled the former group, only that it ^\•as 

 not quite so convex. Some of the eggs forming these clusters were much 

 larger than in the preceding one, and one measured as much as a line 

 in length by half a line in breadth. 



Between the above date and the end of November, when the spider 

 died, eggs were laid on seven distinct occasions, namely, on July 31st, 

 August 11th, 1.5th, and 31st (when he found the eggs floating on a drop 

 of liquid, having been deposited on the gauze between two and half-jjast 

 four in the afternoon), September 9th (twenty-three eggs laid on the 

 earth near the entrance to the nest), September 19th (about thirty eggs 

 on the gauze), November 4th (about thirty eggs on the gauze). Thus, 

 between July 13th and November 4th, this sj^ider laid nine clusters of 

 eggs, all but one of which were placed on the same part of the gauze 

 cover, above and a little in front of the door, and the total number of 

 eggs deposited cannot have been less than two hundred and fifty.' 



Of course, it is difficult to account for the peculiarities of this female 

 in oviposition, for there is little doubt that this manner of laying eggs in 

 disconnected groups, at extended intervals of time, is quite foreign to the 

 usual habit of the species. During the long journey from her native home 

 she may have experienced a shock resulting in a morbid condition of tlie 

 ovaries. Undoubtedly, like her congeners, of whom Mr. Eugene Simon 

 gives an account (see Chapter V.), Cteniza californica lays her eggs in one 

 mass, and suspends them within her burrow. But the above facts at lea.st 

 show the power of the female to control the function of ovipositing, and 

 indicate that there are certain ii'regularities in that function, more or less 

 under the control of the female, whicli may give a clue to the habitual 

 production by certain species of several cocoons, and the occasional multi- 

 plication of cocoons by other species. 



' Moggridge, " Trapdoor Spiders," Supplement, page 203 sij. 



