THE MUD-DAUBERS. 185 



in question. A detailed account of all our observations would 

 be too tedious but we select a few typical cases under each head. 



August 15. Took a nest containing- fourteen specimens of Argiope 

 cophiuoria from 1-4 to 1-3 grown. Egg on anterior part of abdomen. 

 The spiders were very closely packed together and although plump 

 and fresh were all dead. 



July 23. Found nest with fourteen spiders, four alive, ten dead. Of 

 the dead ones four looked plump and fresh, and six were dry. They 

 were packed together even more tightly than usual, so much so that 

 the abdomens of the dry ones were crushed and glued together and 

 also to the walls of the nest. One spider was partly plastered into 

 the top of the cell where it had been closed. Those near the top 

 were the freshest. A second nest gave us fourteen specimens of 

 Epeira juniperi, including many varieties of this variable species. 

 There was no egg, although the nest had been closed. This was the 

 finest looking and best conditioned lot of spiders that we have ever 

 seen. Thirteen of them were alive and one dead. 



July 28. On re-examining the spiders of the second nest taken on 

 July 23, we found that nine of the thirteen were dead, three of these 

 being partly dry. 



September 14. We took a nest of which the provisioning was not 

 quite completed. It contained fourteen spiders, eleven of them being 

 dead and three alive. Twelve of them were very plump and fresh 

 looking, while two had their abdomens crushed and looked old. The 

 egg had not yet been laid. We repeatedly examined the spiders very 

 carefully with a magnifying glass and even tried them with alcohol, 

 which causes a good deal of movement in those that are only para- 

 lyzed, but they were certainly dead. 



September 15, 8 P. M. Have spent two hours in working over the 

 spiders taken yesterday. The three are still alive, but there has been 

 no recovery among those that we pronounced dead. 



September 26. The three are still alive. Four of the others are 

 very dry. 



This will suffice to give a fair idea of the surgical skill of our 

 ravishers. It is plain that the most of the spiders are killed at 

 once, while a quarter or a third of them live for a period vary- 

 ing from one to twelve days, dying in the nest from day to day. 

 Among those taken from other nests were some tliat were so 

 slightly injured that they lived all the way from twelve to forty 

 days. 



