394 Insect Architecture. 



the whole animal. Here they remained quietly, with their 

 abdomens in their cells, and their bodies still plunged in the 

 water ; and in a short time brimstone-coloured bags of eggs 

 appeared in each cell, filling it about a fourth part. On the 

 7th of July several young ones swam out from one of the 

 bags. All this time the old ones had nothing to eat, and yet 

 they never attacked one another as other spiders would have 

 been apt to do."* 



" These spiders," says De Geer, "spin in the water a cell 

 of strong, closely-woven white silk, in the form of half the 

 shell of a pigeon's egg, or like a diving-bell. This is some- 

 times left partly above water, but at others is entirely sub- 

 mersed, and is always attached to the objects near it by a 

 great number of irregular threads. It is closed all round, 

 but has a large opening below, which, however, I found 

 closed on the 15th of December, and the spider living quietly 

 within, with her head downwards. I made a rent in this cell, 

 and expelled the air, upon which the spider came out ; yet, 

 though she appeared to have been laid up for three months 

 in her winter quarters, she greedily seized upon an insect 

 and sucked it. I also found that the male as well as the 

 female constructs a similar subaqueous cell, and during 

 summer no less than in winter."f We have recently kept 

 one of these spiders for several months in a glass of water, 

 where it built a cell half under water, in which it laid its 



CLEANLINESS or SPIDERS. 



When we look at the viscid material with which spiders 

 construct their lines and webs, and at the rough, hairy cover- 

 ing (with a few exceptions) of their bodies, we might con- 

 clude that they would be always stuck over with fragments 

 of the minute fibres which they produce. This, indeed, must 

 often happen, did they not take careful precautions to avoid 

 it ; for we have observed that they seldom, if ever, leave a 

 thread to float at random, except when they wish to form a 



* Clerck, Aranei Suecici, cap. viii. 



t De Geer, Mem. des Insectes, vii. 312. 



