8o Life and Immortality. 



Spiders are naturally very selfish creatures. Their chief 

 concern in life seems to be the gratification of their desires 

 for food. They are eminently unsocial, the sexes preferring 

 to live solitary lives. It is only when actuated by amatory 

 influences that the females will tolerate their weaker lords, 

 and in some instances it is only by stratagem and agility that 

 the latter are able to accomplish the fulfilment of the law cf 

 their being, the females by their ugly, vicious tempers resist- 

 ing to the utmost. In the case of Agalena the male is the 

 stronger of the two. He, at the proper time, when the 

 reproductive cells are matured, takes the female in his power- 

 ful mandibles, Jays her gently on one side, and inserts one of 

 his palpi, whose little sacs had previously been filled with 

 the fecundating discharge, into the epigynum underneath. 

 After a time, necessarily brief, he rises on tiptoe, turns her 

 around and over, so that she comfortably lies on the other 

 side, her head being in the opposite direction, and inserts the 

 other palpus. All through the operation the female lies as 

 though she was dead. The ends of nature being served, the 

 sexes separate, the male returning to the solitary life he 

 previously led, while the female busies herself in providing 

 for the duties of maternity. 



The eggs becoming mature, the latter proceeds to make a 

 little web and lays them in it, practising the utmost care. 

 She now covers them over with silk, which she weaves into 

 a cocoon, where the young remain some time after they are 

 hatched. Seldom is the laying seen, for it generally happens 

 in the night-time, or in retired places. Often, in confinement, 

 the spider refuses to lay at all. An egg of a spider, like 

 that of any other animal, is a cell which separates from the 

 body of the female, and subsequently unites with one or more 

 cells that have separated from the body of the male. This 

 process of union, termed fertilization, doubtless takes place 

 when the eggs have attained their full size and are about 



oo 



to be laid. After being laid and hardened it is a very easy 

 matter to watch their development. All that is necessary 



