COCOON LIFE AND BABYHOOD. 225 



besides, a number of half grown specimens brought from New England 

 with the colony, would be mothers in the fall. Thus, with the actual 

 and prospective issue, an aranead invasion seemed imminent, carrying 

 therewith the prospect that house, vineyard, and grounds would be en- 

 swathed and shrouded in cobwebs. 



Mrs. Eigenmann has informed me of like behavior on the part of the 

 young of Epeira gemma, at San Diego, California. A number of females 

 had been placed, about the 1st of November, in tin cans, where 

 California they deposited their large tawny brown cocoons. The cans with 

 their enclosed cocoons were placed aside, and when opened Feb- 

 ruary 5th following, an interval of three months, they contained 

 numbers of little yellow spiders, marked with a black spot posteriorly on 

 the abdomen. One can was put out of doors and opened. In a few hours 

 a silken ladder of delicate lines had been made from the tip upw r ard 

 eighteen inches to the buds and flow r ers of Encelia californica growing 

 in the garden. At the top the ladder was attached to a bud which was 

 bent downward, and between it and the stem of the plant some filmy 

 spider weaving served as a scaffold. Upon this the spiderlings had as- 

 sembled in three separate bunches, somewhat triangular in outline, which 

 suggested to the observer tiny bunches of very prolific grapes. Mrs. Eigen- 

 mann reinclosed the spiders within the tin, in order to ship them to me, 

 but in the act many escaped. The rest arrived safely, and immediately 

 upon the opening of the can issued forth and began to spin their delicate 

 filaments. 



VII. 



The brood fraternity of spiderlings, in connection with their rapidly 

 developed tendency to spin themselves away from the home centre, leads 



to the accidental formation of objects that curiously resemble 

 Bridge bridges, canopies, and tents. When they begin to move they 

 ,, ,. drag after them fine filaments of silk. A hundred spiderlings, 



more or less, passing from point to point and back and forth 

 by single bridge lines, and keeping close together, will not be long in 

 laying out a series of lines and ribbons that suggest miniature roadway 

 trestles and cables of a wire bridge. 



One of the most curious miniatures of this sort which I have known 

 was once made in my library. A package of cocoons of Zilla x-notata, 

 sent to me from California by Mrs. Eigenmann, was laid upon a long 

 table. One morning, upon entering the room, I found that the spiders 

 had hatched and issued from the openings in the lid of the package, a 

 large cylindrical fruit can. From the summit of this can, as from a 

 bridge pier, the- spiderlings had strung their lines to books and paper 

 boxes laid upon the table, and thus formed a series of piers and abut- 

 ments. They had already w r oven a sheeted way several inches wide, that 



