80 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Jan., 



with making a marginal wall upon the base, and did this l^y lay- 

 ing down looped threads (made by high strokes of the spinnerets) ; 

 the maximum height of this wall about equaled the diameter of her 

 abdomen, and it was not quite vertical, but inclined slightly toward 

 the centre. She then stood over the base with her head toward its 

 highest margin, and from 7.54 to 7.57 oviposited upon its centre; 

 from her genital aperture fell first a large drop of clear, viscid sub- 

 stance, then a smaller drop containing one ovum, then a large 

 drop into which fell in rapid succession 17 ova; finally a slowly- 

 exuding, thread-like stream of the viscid substance, contained in 

 which were ova arranged one behind the other. All this fluid sub- 

 stance was kept from overflowing the base by the marginal wall. 

 Next, from 7.57 to 8.12, she spun a cover over the egg mass, plastering 

 thread after thread upon it ; the cover was of less diameter than the 

 base. From 8.12^ to 8.17 she bit loose the margin of the cocoon, and 

 when a cut had been made pried up the edge with her palpi. The 

 loosened cocoon was now of a lenticular shape, and she took it below 

 her thorax (not holding it off the ground, it was too large for that), and 

 revolved it in that position with her palpi, chelicera and third pair of 

 legs ; she spun vigorously upon it so that it soon assumed the definite 

 globular form, and only a line around it marked the point of union of 

 the cover to the base. The cocoon was at first white, but became 

 bluish on contact with water. 



The other cocoons made resulted in failures, though the commence- 

 ment in each of the two cases observed was normal. Thus 9 

 No. 196, in making her second cocoon, spun the circular base, built a 

 marginal wall (of a height of 2 mm.) upon it, oviposited upon it from 

 8.17 to 8.20 (71 ova dropping in succession into one large drop of viscid 

 substance), and spun the cover from 8.20 to 8.24. Then she changed 

 the normal process, and for a minute stopped to loosen a portion 

 of the cocoon from the ground, then spun upon the cover again from 

 8.27 to 8.34. She then took the cocoon beneath her body and began 

 spinning upon it, but the covering had been made too thin ; she was evi- 

 dently puzzled by feeling the ova through it, and worked hesitatingly ; 

 she hung the misshapen cocoon to her spinnerets, but before next morn- 

 ing had devoured it and the enclosed ova. She had not been able to 

 compensate for the initial mistake of spinning too thin a cover. ? No. 

 268 started to spin upon a drop of water that I placed on the floor of 

 the cage; I drained off the water and she ceased. Next day I put 

 in another drop; she first spvm over it, then oviposited on it, but the 

 water caused the ova to disinteffrate and she finished by eating them. 



