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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



males are nearly as bright colored and attain to almost the same size 

 as the females. Here there is no danger to life, all the risk that a 

 male runs being, perhaps, the loss of a limb or two. In everyone 

 of the groups of spiders mentioned, the female and male may be 

 seen near each other only during the pairing season and even then 

 the male has to make its own arrangement for food. 



Here the absence' of much disparity in size and color between the 

 sexes, the friendly and communal living of the males and females in 

 the same nest, and lastly, the happy and almost affectionate relation 

 that subsists between the sexes, indicate a high order of develop- 

 ment. The savage nature of the female in other groups is never 

 displayed by the female spiders of this group. 



The female gladly welcomes her lover and the male may be seen 

 rubbing its pedipalps alternately against the genital pore of the fe- 

 male, sometimes for over three or five minutes. At other times one 

 may find the male running after the other sex, in fact, hunting it 

 through all the winding passages in the nest. The female may step 

 aside, or run, and thus avoid the approach of the male, if she has no 

 liking- for such a meeting ; but never does she exhibit the rancor and 

 resentment with extended forelegs and well-drawn fakes, found 

 among the females of the family Epeiridse. 



The eggs when laid are packed in silk in a lenticular cocoon, which 

 is white in color, and about six millimeters in diameter. Unlike the 

 other spiders that carry the cocoon, either by means of their falces 

 or spinnerets, the female in the group we are considering, attaches 

 it to the side walls of the nest. 



After a period varying from thirteen to fifteen days, the young 

 ones try to emerge from the cocoon by tearing out portions of its 

 walls. These little spiders, the size of an Indian mustard seed, move 

 about and some of them settle over the back of the mother, after the 

 manner of Lycosidse. The abdomen of the young ones is globular 

 and pink-colored. Until they pass through two or three moults, 

 they do not appear to take any food. As they grow older, they par- 

 take of the food brought by the mother. I have often noted in- 

 stances in which the females quietly retired, leaving the food they 

 were eating to the young ones that clustered round it. After a few 

 moults, the young spiders begin to participate, in their own little 

 way, in the grand task of web-building. Small patch-works of 

 webs, a few lines here and there, mark their juvenile efforts. At 

 this stage 110 difference of size, color or sex is visible. The time re- 

 quired by the young spiderling to reach the adult condition, after 

 issuing out of the egg, is almost three months. 



While the development of the young is in progress, the adult 



