HATCHING OF EGGS. 107 



copied from Lister into most subsequent works on 

 natural history, that this species never spins a web. 

 They might not indeed have done so if they had been 

 left at liberty.* 



A spider of the same species, which Bonnet kept 

 under an inverted glass, at first was so exceedingly 

 attached to her bag of eggs, that he could riot beat 

 her away from it after it was detached. ' By and 

 by,' he continues, c I observed with surprise that she 

 had abandoned and kept aloof from the very bag 

 which she had previously defended with so much cou- 

 rage and address; and I marvelled still more to see 

 her run away from it when I placed it near her. I 

 remarked at the same time that she had become less 

 agile, seemingly in consequence of sickness. By 

 more close observation, I discovered that several of 

 the young ones were hatched, and their numbers 

 increased by degrees, while all ran towards their 

 mother and climbed upon her body. Some placed 

 themselves on her back, some on her head, and some 

 on her limbs, so that she was literally covered with 

 them, and appeared to bend under the weight, not so 

 much from being over-loaded, as from her feeble con- 

 dition ; and indeed she soon afterwards died. The 

 young spiders remained in a group upon the body 

 of their mother, which they did not abandon for some 

 time, and for the purpose, as I was half inclined 

 (pardon the odious supposition) to think, of sucking 

 the juices of her body.'f 



In order to prove whether a spider of this species 

 could distinguish her own egg-bag from that of a 

 stranger, we interchanged the bags of two individuals, 

 which we had put under inverted wine-glasses ; but 

 both manifested great uneasiness, and would not touch 

 the strange bags. We then introduced one of the 

 mothers into the glass containing her eggs and the 



* J. R. t Bonnet, GEuvres, vol. ii, p. 440. 



