1903.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 91 



at him. This might have been a courting movement on the part of 

 the male, or else a cautious reconnaissance. 



Cocooning. — On June 2, at 1.30 P.M., I found a female had spun a 

 scaffolding of silk threads from the floor to the wall of the cage, and 

 upon it a circular disk of white silk ; the latter was evidently the base 

 of the cocoon. I unfortunatelv placed a drop of water near her on 

 the glass floor of the cage. She then left the cocoon base, spun upon 

 the surface of the water drop, evidently mistaking it for the silken 

 base, and ultimately oviposited upon it. Later she raised and held 

 the egg mass beneath her cephalothorax, holding it there with her 

 palpi, chelicera, third pair of legs, and with her abdomen bent verti- 

 cally downward, and endeavored to spin upon it in that position. 

 But there was only a thin covering of silk on only one surface of the 

 egg mass, the cocoon came to grief, and she ultimately ate it up. 

 The drop of water had disturbed the regular course of the cocooning. 

 In the state of nature this species carries its round cocoon attached 

 to the spinnerets. 



Ocyale undata (Hentz). PI. IV, fig. 1. 



Care for the Youiig. — This species, as Hentz and Emerton have 

 described, constructs a web-nest for its young in the top of small 

 plants. I kept several females in order to learn this habit more in 

 detail, and the following notes relate to ? No. 235, captured June 22. 



This spider was caught upon the ground in a wood, laboriously 

 moving along with its large spherical cocoon. Then, and for the first 

 evening after her capture, she held her cocoon beneath her body with 

 the aid of her chelicera, palpi and with her abdomen pressed against 

 it; but unlike other Lycosids, her spinnerets were not attached to it. 

 That night she spun a network of lines in the cage, and next morning 

 was hanging upside down, hanging to the web lines with the claws 

 of her first and fourth pairs of legs, tightly embracing the cocoon with 

 her other legs, her chelicera and her palpi, in the position shown by 

 the sketch. Only once up to the time of hatching did she leave the 

 cocoon hanging in the web, and then in order to clean herself; at all 

 other times she continued to hold it tightly, and refused flies and 

 beetles put in as food. She occasionally climbed about with the 

 cocoon, spinning new lines in the cage, until quite a thick network 

 was made; and on July 9 I found the cocoon, bitten open by the mother, 

 hvmg high in the web, and numerous newly hatched spiderlings dis- 

 tributed over the web. She spun so many new lines that she herself 

 finally became enmeshed in them, and on July 18 I cleared them 



