130 SPIDERS 



spiders make no snares, and use their silken threads only to con- 

 struct a cocoon for the protection of their eggs. 



The egg-bags or cocoons of spiders vary very much in appear- 

 ance, but they are all commenced in much the same way. The spider 

 first weaves a small, soft pad of silk, on which she deposits her 

 eggs, and then covers them carefully with a second pad, opening 

 her spinnerets to the fullest extent and pouring out a regular 

 shower of silk, which she spreads out and beats down with her 

 hind legs. Some species are content in this Way to surround 

 their eggs with a fluffy ball of silk ; others construct the most 

 elaborate caskets further to protect them from egg-eating crea- 

 tures and the inclemency of the weather. The big European 

 Banded Spider fashions hers in the shape of a balloon and suspends 

 it in an inverted position from tall grasses, attached by strong silken 

 cords. Several different coloured silks go to the making of this 

 dainty egg-case, white, russet, brown, and black ; the neck of 

 the tiny balloon is most beautifully and evenly scalloped, and the 

 whole ornamented with a glossy silken ribbon laid on in a zigzag 

 pattern. Some species make their cocoon in the form of tiny 

 kettledrums, the closely woven and tightly stretched silken cover 

 being as smooth and taut as parchment. Other cocoons are like 

 wine-glasses, flat pie-dishes, or cones, each particular species having 

 its own hard-and-fast ideas on the important subject of egg cocoons. 



The egg-bags when completed are attached to twigs and foliage 

 or tucked away into some sheltered nook, such as a crevice in an 

 old wall or under the loose bark of a decaying tree trunk ; in such 

 a situation we may often find the large, fluffy, golden-coloured egg- 

 cocoon of the common Garden Spider. Some spiders, instead of 

 trusting all their eggs to one large cocoon, construct several small 

 ones, and, instead of hiding them away, string them in chains 

 between two of the upper spokes of the web from which the spiral 

 threads have been removed. The American Tailed Spider (T. cau- 

 data) adopts this plan, and furthermore adorns her cocoons with 

 the wings and legs and other indigestible portions of the insects 

 she entraps in her snare. 



Covering the egg-cocoons with the debris of their victims or 

 other odds and ends, such as fragments of leaves, bits of straw, 

 grass, etc., is by no means an uncommon practice among spiders ; 

 some species, after making the daintiest of receptacles to hold their 



