The Narbonne Lycosa 85 



poverty of intellect. Let us wait for the 

 hatching, which takes place in the first fortnight 

 in September. As they come out of the pill, 

 the youngsters, to the number of about a couple 

 of hundred, clamber on the Spider's back and 

 there sit motionless, jammed close together, 

 forming a sort of bark of mingled legs and 

 paunches. The mother is unrecognizable under 

 this live mantilla. When the hatching is over, 

 the wallet is loosened from the spinnerets and 

 cast aside as a worthless rag. 



The little ones are very good : none stirs, 

 none tries to get more room for himself at his 

 neighbours' expense. What are they doing 

 there, so quietly ? They allow themselves to 

 be carted about, like the young of the Opossum. 

 Whether she sit in long meditation at the 

 bottom of her den, or come to the orifice, in 

 mild weather, to bask in the sun, the Lycosa 

 never throws off her great-coat of swarming 

 youngsters until the fine season comes. 



If, in the middle of winter, in January or 

 February, I happen, out in the fields, to ransack 

 the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and 

 frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled 



