MATERNAL INDUSTRY : COCOONS OP ORBWEAVERS. 



109 



den among vegetable leaves, as the huge tarantula and the large Lateri- 

 grade spider, Heterapoda venatoria, are brought to our port from the 

 West Indies in bunches of bananas and other fruit. Or, she may have 

 floated in, as a young balloonist, from some city garden; for the species is 

 abundant in open grounds within the city limits. Instead of brushing 

 her down and killing her, after the usual manner of dealing with such 

 creatures, the farmer took a fancy to preserve her, and would allow no 

 one around his stall to inflict any injury upon her. She wove her char- 

 acteristic web against one of the iron rods for suspending meat, chickens, 

 game, etc., and there remained secure during the season. 



Some time between the 10th and 20th of August she be- 

 gan to make a cocoon, which she enclosed within a little 

 tent of interlacing lines, after the manner of that repre- 

 sented at Fig. 40. About a week or ten days thereafter she 

 made a second cocoon, placing it in a position sixteen inches 

 above the other. Both of these co- 

 coons I saw precisely as they were 

 left by the spider. They were spun 

 within tents of crossed lines, five or 

 six inches long and four or five wide, 

 with a thickness of between two and 

 three inches. The lines constituting 

 the under edges of the tent were at- 

 tached to the post of the stall on 

 which the orb was spun. The upper 

 tent had its roof lines sustained and 

 drawn out from the post by the 

 foundation lines of the orb. (Fig. 

 106.) The lines composing the tents 

 were of a greenish yellow silk, sim- 

 ilar to that used in the construction of the cocoon cases. 



I removed the cocoons and opened them. The lower one was an 

 inch and a quarter long and seven-eighths of an inch wide; was com- 

 posed of a soft, yellow silken plush, and inside was constructed pre- 

 cisely like the ordinary egg sac of this species. It contained one hundred 

 and twenty eggs, all of them sterile. The only peculiarity was that the 

 stem which one usually finds at the top was missing. The second cocoon 

 was not quite so large, one inch long and five-eighths of an inch wide, 

 but was more perfect in shape, containing the usual stem. The eggs 

 within this cocoon were also sterile, and the number did not exceed fifty. 

 The number of eggs in both cases is small as compared with the usual 

 fecundity of the species. 



We may probably account for the making of the second cocoon by 

 some abnormal condition of the ovaries, which prevented the ovipositing 



coons 01 Argiope, 

 hung in a meat stall. 



