NOV 



PSYCHE. 



ORGAN OF THE CAMBRIDGE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB 



EDITED BY GEORGE DIMMOCK AND B. PICKMAN MANN. 



Vol. II.] Cambridge, Mass., May-June, 1877. [Nos. 37-38. 

 Cocoon-making and Egg-laying of Spiders. 



In the afternoon of May 26, I found, on the under side of a 

 stone, a female Herjoyllus ater at work on a nearly finished cocoon. 

 She was so attentive to her work that she merely stopped while 

 the stone was rolling over, and then went on as before. The 

 spider had been enclosed in a bag of silk large enough for her 

 to move about in easily, and the cocoon was in the upper part 

 against the stone. A circular portion of the bag attached to 

 the stone had been thickened by the spider, and this circular 

 patch formed one half of the cocoon. The eggs, about forty in 

 number, were beneath the centre of this circle and supported 

 by threads passing under them from one point in its rim to an- 

 other. When discovered the spider was completing the lower 

 half of the cocoon by threads crossing in all directions under 

 the eggs and attached to tliose first spun from the rim of the 

 cocoon. 



The finished cocoon of H. ater, although the spider remains 

 clino-incp to it, shows no trace of a thin baa; like the one described 

 above. I found that the portions adhering to this unfinished 

 cocoon had nearly disappeared by drying before I reached 

 home, so that, from this cause and by the motion of the spider 

 about the cocoon, the whole bag may be easily destroyed, even 

 if not taken away purposely by the spider. 



The same evening I found in an old Solidago top, near her 

 web, a female Epeira strix, with the abdomen much distended. 

 I took lier home and kept her in a glass for three days. On 

 the fourth night she got out of the glass, climbed up on my 

 bureau, and, when I first noticed her next morning, she was 



