1903.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 117 



the female attempted to kill the male after copulation, and very fre- 

 quently before; then he escapes by falling from the web, and always 

 approaches her from beneath. The time of copulation varied from 11 

 to 32 minutes. 



Cocooning. — The making of the cocoon I have not seen, though I 

 have watched pregnant females for long intervals in the hope of seeing 

 it. Pokrowsky (1899) is the only wTiter who has described this pro- 

 cess. The cocoon is a very thin, white, silken covering to the globular 

 mass of eggs; so thin and flimsy that we can be sure that there is a 

 real silken cocoon only by the white case that is left after the young 

 have escaped from it. The number of cocoons furnished by my cap- 

 tives was as follows, each date given representing the time of making 

 of a particular cocoon: 9 No. 9, June 24 (hatched July 12), July 26, 

 August 30 (hatched September 23) ; ? No. 12, May 27 (hatched June 

 15), July 19 (this cocoon was dropped to the floor and did not hatch) ; 

 ? No. 82, June 14 (hatched July 4), July 19 (this cocoon was dropped 

 and did not hatch), August 16 (hatched about September 1), latter 

 half of November, (hatched in December); 9 No. 179, June 16 (this was 

 dropped and did not hatch); 9 No. 181, June 23 (this was dropped 

 and did not hatch), July 19 (hatched August 4). Thus none produced 

 more than 3 cocoons, and when a cocoon was dropped it did not hatch. 



Care for the Young. — As nmiierous writers have noticed, the mother 

 carries her cocoon suspended in her jaws. But it has always been 

 stated that the cocoon is carried until the young hatch. While I 

 have found this to be the case in one or two instances, I have 

 seen more cases where the mother will occasionallv suspend her 

 cocoon temporarily by a line to the web, in order to clean herself and 

 to feed. This is the more remarkable since rough handling does not 

 cause the mother to loose her firm hold upon the cocoon, and her jaws 

 are so firmly imbedded in its lining that, even when she wishes to, 

 she has difficulty in breaking her hold upon it. Perhaps some of these 

 cases where the cocoon falls to the ground are mishaps occasioned by 

 the mother losing her hold upon her cocoon when trying to suspend 

 it upon a thread. That such a suspension is frequent is shown by the 

 following facts: ? No. 9 held her cocoon continuously in her jaws from 

 June 24 up to July 2; on the latter date I gave her a fly, she chased 

 and quickly enshrouded it, then left it and went to the roof of the cage, 

 where she spun a few fine lines, then with the help of her second and 

 third pairs of legs removed the cocoon from her jaws, held it with 

 these legs while she touched her spinnerets to its surface three timeS; 

 then left it hanging on the fine lines thus made, and which were at- 



