MATEKNAL INSTINCTS: MOTHEKIIOOD. 201 



adopt the shot in place of the cocoon. The fact that the spider will carry 

 about so comparatively heavy an object as a lead shot instead of its cocoon 

 certainly argues a jjoorly developed muscular sense. ^ Sir John Lubbock 

 appears to have made some experiments in the lino marked out by the 

 Peckhams, as a result of which he concludes that examples of Lycosa 

 saccata did not appear to recognize their own bags of eggs, but were equal- 

 ly happy if they were interchanged.'^ 



A gravid female of Argiope cophinaria sent to me enclosed in a paj^er 

 box was found dead, having left an unlinisiied cocoon. She was cling- 

 ing to one end of a thick patch of white spinningwork that 



Covermg qnHQ enclosed a small tuft of fern leaves, at the other end of 



Empty 1 . , II /. 1 ,, • 1. 



g gg^i^g winch was a roll of purple swathnig, correspondmg with a 



purple i)ad of a complete cocoon. I expected to find the eggs 



within this roll, but was surprised upon opening it to see a yellowish 



ball of silk, and nothing more. AVhere the eggs sliould have been was 



only a round silken wad. Nevertheless, the expiring energy of the spider 



had been spent in si)inning a protecting cover around tins mock egg 



mass. 



An anonymous observer "'' records somewhat similar cases. He found 

 one Cophinaria cocoon in which there were no eggs, and another con- 

 taining but three. The eggs were on some boards beneath the cocoon 

 site, having fallen from the first receptacle before they were covered. In 

 each case the mother went on with her work and carefully finished the 

 eggless flask. If the loss was discovered the knowledge made no differ- 

 ence in the exercise of her maternal functions, which, apparently, were 

 controlled by an instinct or feeling quite independent of knowledge. 



A like example of mental abstraction (if one may be allowed such a 

 phrase) was reported to me by Mrs. Mary Treat as having occurred at Vine- 

 land, New Jersey, with a large Florida Dolomede sjiider, probably 



Unmtel- i)ol,„,iedes tenebrosus Hentz. This mother, after the habit of 



ligent , -11 11-1 



Instinct '^" S^'™^' carried her cocoon under her jaw, but sometimes 



shifted it to a position beneath the abdomen. Yet there were 



no eggs in the cocoon — a fact which thus came about: When first caught 



the Dolomede was confined in a tin can, which so surprised or friglitened 



her out of her maternal propriety that she deposited her eggs in the 



can without attempting to protect them with a cocoon. She was removed 



to a natural environment upon the ground, whereupon she spun a web 



and gathered up sundry materials, which she managed to make into the 



form of a cocoon, which, with this species, is a round sac about the size 



of a boy's playing marble. This she hugged to her body and lugged 



about with as zealous care as though it were filled with eggs. 



' Jlental Powers of Spiders, pa^es 417-419. 



- (.»n tlie Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals, Sir John Luliljock, page 179. 



' "Katydid," Chicago Tribune, Seirfeniber 11th, 1881. 



