CEA PaaRi ok PY, 
ARACHNIDA EMBOLOBRANCHIATA (CONTINUED )—ARANEAE 
(CONTINUED) 
HABITS——ECDYSIS—-TREATMENT OF YOUNG—MIGRATION——WEBS-—— 
NESTS —— EGG-COCOONS — POISON —— FERTILITY —_- ENEMIES —— 
PROTECTIVE COLORATION—MIMICRY—-SENSES—INTELLIGENCE 
——MATING HABITS—FOSSIL SPIDERS 
EARLY LIFE OF SPIDERS. 
Ecdysis or Moulting.—Spiders undergo no metamorphosis— 
that is to say, no marked change of form takes place, as is so 
often the case among Insects, in the period subsequent to the 
hatching of the egg. This fact; by the by, is a great trouble to 
collectors, as it is generally extremely difficult, and sometimes 
quite impossible, to identify immature specimens with certainty. 
But although unmistakably a spider as soon as it leaves the 
egg, the animal is, at first, in many respects incomplete, and it is 
only after a series of moults, usually about nine in number, that 
it attains its full perfection of form. 
Until the occurrence of its first moult it is incapable of feed- 
ing or spinning, mouth and spinning tubes being clogged by the 
inembrane it then throws off. It is at first pale-coloured and 
less thickly clothed with hairs and spines than it eventually 
becomes, and the general proportions of the body and the arrange- 
ment of the eyes are by no means those of the adult in miniature, 
but will be greatly modified by unequal growth in various direc- 
tions. It speedily, however, attains its characteristic shape and 
markings, and after one or two ecdyses little alteration is to be 
noticed, except increase in size, until the final moult, when the 
spider at length becomes sexually mature. 
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