MATERNAL INSTINCTS: MOTIIKKHOOD. l'.l!l 



recollected it, and promptly took it up. A second individual, utter an ab- 

 sence of forty-three hours, had apparently forgotten all about her n.roon, 

 since, although she touched it five times with her legs, and it WU.H four 

 times placed directly under her, not until the fifth time did its presence 

 recall her to a sense of duty. She then very slowly and languidly took 

 it up and passed it to the usual place. From another individual the 

 ^ cocoon was kept forty-eight hours, but the little spider could 

 Limit aySnot remember so long, and, although the observers worked long 

 and patiently to make her recollect, she would have nothing 

 more to do with it. Notwithstanding many efforts, no female among the 

 Lycosids was found constant in her affection to her cocoon after as long 

 a period as forty-eight hours. 



Several species of the Attidaj and Thomisidiu did not remember their 

 cocoons for twenty-four hours. On the other hand, a female of Clubiona 

 pallens remembered her eggs for the space of forty-eight hours, and when 

 they were returned to her spun a web over them in the corner of the 

 box in which they were placed. Of all the spiders experimented upon 

 by the Peckhams, the little Lineweaver Theridium globosum had 

 _ . the best memory for her cocoon. This was returned to her after 



Mother, fifty-one hours' separation. She at once went to the eggs, touched 

 them with her legs, then left them to improve her web, every 

 now and then running back to see if they were safe, and presently setr 

 tied down near them. 



Here, again, our ideas of what might be expected in the ordinary course 

 of Nature are thrown into confusion. The Lycosids, who carry their co- 

 coons about their persons until their young are hatched, and then person- 

 ally conduct their broodlings until they are strong enough to take their 

 chances in life apart from maternal care, appear to have a weak memory, 

 and a comparatively feeble maternal affection for their offspring. So also 

 the Attids and Thomisids, who remain near their cocoons, brooding or 

 guarding them for the space of fifteen or twenty days, were found so de- 

 fective, either in memory or maternal feeling, that they lose interest in 

 their cocoons if separated from them for the space of twenty-four hours. 

 No doubt these experiments need supplementing; and when the patient 

 observers who have given us these results shall have wrought 

 longer upon the same field, we may come to different conclu- 

 sions ; but at present it would seem that the development of 

 maternal instincts appears 'to be quite independent of those causes which, 

 according to the theory of evolution at least, we might have expected to 

 affect them most vigorously. 



IX. 



The Peckhams found, as others had discovered, that it is not a ilittimlt 

 matter to deceive spiders as to their proper cocoons. A ball of cotton they 



