It breathes through its skin. And this, by the way, 

 gives us to understand why it was that our pycno- 

 gonid did not suffer from asphyxiation within the 

 walls of its double prison. 



In keeping with the remarkable structure of this 

 strange beast, is the equally remarkable strange- 

 ness of its ways. It is the male, and not the female, 

 who incubates and mothers the young. When the 

 eggs are laid by the female, the male gathers them 

 with his ovigerous legs and deposits them in the 

 sac-like pockets at their bases and thus holds them 

 until they are hatched. The members of the brood 

 when born are unlike the parents in that the seg- 

 ments of the body are not so pronounced or are 

 actually wanting; but after a few days, possibly 

 weeks, during which period they may be seen clam- 

 bering over the fathers, several moltings of their 

 skin takes place. With each successive coat they 

 acquire a more adult-like character; then finally 

 they shift for themselves. 



Such, in brief, is the description and history of 

 the sea-spider; such is the summary of my obser- 

 vations, which agrees with that of the meager liter- 

 ature pertaining to these animals; such, it would 

 seem, is all that is vouchsafed for Man to know — 



[35] 



