COCOON LIFE AND BABYHOOD. 229 



When young Aurelia begins to construct snares it also begins to feed, 

 to grow, and become darker. Mr. Pollock thinks that in a month or two 



from that time, according to the food it gets, the spiderling 

 p . , changes its skin. The females have nine changes after leaving 



the cocoon. From the first to the eighth moult these changes 

 take place pretty regularly, under favorable circumstances, at periods in- 

 creasing gradually from about fifteen to twenty-five days. For about two 

 days preceding each change the spider seems to eat nothing, and remains 

 motionless. 



The operation of getting out of the old skin is a strange looking per- 

 formance, and is thus effected : The spider is fastened firmly, by a thread 



from the spinnerets, close to the under side of the web ; the 

 f ' . legs are all gathered together, and appear to be fixed to a spot 

 ' close by ; the body hangs downwards, the skin begins to split 

 at the sides, and the spider, by a succession of powerful efforts, lasting 

 about an hour, gradually draws its legs out of the old skin. When fairly 

 freed, its former attitude is reversed, for it hangs with the end of its 

 abdomen uppermost and its legs dangling loosely down ; they are now 

 quite soft, flexible, and semitransparent, the abdomen slender, and the 

 spider feeble and exhausted. It can scarcely crawl or exert itself in any 

 way. It remains stationary for about an hour, then turns its legs up, 

 and climbs by its attaching line to the web, where it remains motionless 

 for some forty-eight hours, after which it resumes its usual habits. 



Should it at any time whilst young lose a limb or part of one, nothing 

 appears to occur towards its reproduction until at least one subsequent 



change of skin has taken place; the new leg is not much more 

 Lost than half the length of the corresponding perfect part, and is 



R 1D t d ^ a somewna t lighter color. These stunted limbs Mr. Pollock 



thought of little use to the spider ; and he could not notice that- 

 there was any reproduction of limbs lost after the seventh change of skin. 

 The moults take place regularly from the first (after leaving the co- 

 coon) till the eighth. Then the spider is adult, and begins making 



cocoons, the first in a month's time, and others at periods within 

 Begin- from about fifteen to twenty-five days apart. About a week 

 c after the fifth cocoon has been made the spider changes its 



skin for the last time, rests from its egg laying for about thirty 

 days, makes five more cocoons at intervals of from fifteen to twenty-five 

 days, and dies a week or so after making its last one. 



The spots on the sides of the abdomens of young Aurelias gradually 

 disappear, and give place to handsome markings of regular transverse 

 bands across the abdomen of silver and orange alternating with black, a 

 silver thorax, and transverse stripes of brown and black on the legs. 1 



1 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist,, 1865, pages 460, 461. 



