210 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



the eggs or the young ones is to put them all 

 in a hole in the ground. Earthworms make 

 a little barrel of hardened slime secreted by 

 the "saddle" or swollen girdle on their body, 

 and as this slips forward it carries the liber- 

 ated eggs with it and closes up at the ends. 

 We find it sometimes when digging in the 

 garden. The mother trap-door spider makes 

 a well-finished shaft with smooth walls and 

 a silk-hinged lid, and lays her eggs in a bunch 

 at the foot. The crocodile lays her eggs in the 

 warm earth, sometimes with decaying vege- 

 table matter round about, and the young one 

 calls to her from within the egg when it is 

 ready to be hatched, for it would be awk- 

 ward to be born 2 feet below the surface. 

 Yet that is what happens to the offspring of 

 those mound-birds that dig a hole in the 

 warm, loose volcanic sand of the beach in 

 Celebes. The mole's nest is also underground 

 a grass-lined chamber below a big mole-hill. 

 Another way of securing the safety of the 

 eggs or the offspring is to hide them off the 

 ground altogether. Many insects lay their 

 eggs in or on leaves; many spiders put their 

 eggs in a silken bag or cocoon and fasten this 

 between two leaves, or in a crevice. Some 



