Funnel- Web Builder. 8 1 



to be done is to cover the egg to be examined with oil, 

 alcohol or any liquid that will wet it, for this tends to make 

 the shell transparent. Eggs laid in summer are ready to 

 hatch in a fortnight, while those laid in autumn develop 

 slowly all through the winter. A day or two are occupied 

 in hatching. When the time has arrived the shell, or more 

 properly the skin, cracks along the lines between the legs, 

 and comes off in rags, and the spider slowly stretches itself 

 and creeps about. Pale and soft it appears, and devoid of 

 hairs or spines, but its feet are armed with small claws. In 

 two or three days it gets rid of another skin, and begins to 

 assume a spider-like appearance, the eyes becoming dark- 

 colored, the thoracic marks growing more distinct, and a 

 dark stripe appearing across the edge of each segment of the 

 abdomen. The hairs are now long, but few in number, and 

 arranged in rows across the abdomen and along the middle 

 of the thorax. Before the next moult they usually forsake 

 the cocoon, and live together for a short time in a web spun 

 in common. Where larger broods of young spiders live 

 together, they soon show cannibal-like qualities, and if kept 

 in confinement one or two out of a cocoon-full may be raised 

 without recourse to any other food. 



As spiders grow larger, they must moult from time to 

 time. This is an interesting process. The spider hangs 

 herself by a thread from the spinnerets to the centre of the 

 web. In a short time the skin cracks around the thorax, 

 just over the first joints of the legs, and the top part falls 

 forward, being held only at the front edge. The skin of the 

 abdomen now breaks irregularly along the sides and back, 

 and shrinks together in a bunch, leaving the spider sus- 

 pended only by a short thread from the spinnerets, her legs 

 still being trammelled by the old skin. Fifteen minutes of vio- 

 lent exertion releases her from the encumbrance, when she 

 drops down, hanging by her spinnerets like a wet rag. She 

 can do nothing in this condition, not even draw her legs 

 away from an approaching hand. In ten or twelve minutes 



