BOOK XI. xxviiT. 84-xx.x. 87 



rivers are going to rise they raise their webs higher ; 

 also they weave their web in fine weather and reweave 

 it in cloudy weather, and consequently a number of 

 spiders' webs is a sign of rain. People think that it 

 is the female that weaves and the male that hunts, 

 and that thus the married pair do equal shares of 

 service. 



XXIX. Spiders couple with the haunches, and Reproduetion 

 produce grubs resembhng eggs — for their mode ^f "■'*?' """• 

 reproduction also must not be defen-ed, as insects 



have scarcely any other method ; and they lay them 

 all into their webs, but scattered, because they jump 

 about and lay them in the process. The phala^igium 

 spiders only incubate in the actual cave a large 

 number of grubs which when hatched out devour the 

 mother, and often the father too, for he helps to 

 incubate. They produce broods of as many as three 

 hundred, whereas all the other kinds produce fewer ; 

 and they sit on the eggs three days. They take 

 four weeks to become full-growTi spiders. 



XXX. Land scorpions also hke spiders produce Land 

 grubs resembhng eggs and die in the same way as *'^'^'°'"- 

 spiders ; they are a horrible plague, poisonous like 

 snakes, except that they inflict a worse torture by 

 despatching the victim with a lingering death lasting 

 three days, their wound being always fatal to girls 



and almost absolutely so to women, but to men only 

 in the morning, when thev are coming out of their 

 holes, before they emit their yet unsated poison by 

 some accidental stroke. Their tail is always en- 

 gaged in striking and does not stop practising at 

 any moment, lest it should ever miss an opportunity ; 

 it strikes both a sideway stroke and one with the 

 tail bent up. ApoUodorus states that these insects 



485 



