596 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO IJOl. 



as soon as ever she had laid her eggs, covered them with her web. But that 

 I might be fully satisfied, I took several spiders which had not yet laid, and 

 throwing them on their backs I pressed their bellies, by which I had not only a 

 clear view of the opening, but by squeezing a little harder, I made a great many 

 eggs come out, and not the least moisture proceeded from the hinder part of 

 the body. This experiment convinced me, that this was the place from whence 

 she voided both her eggs and excrements. 



In fig. 10, ABC represent the spider as laid on its back, and d the hook. 

 Fig. 11, GHiK show the hook separated from the body, as it appeared through 

 the microscope ; between 1 and k are seen the wrinkles or folds which I imagine 

 ' were made to produce a more than ordinary motion ; ef show that part that 

 joined it to the body. The use of this hook may be to arrange the eggs in 

 order. In the said figure, between p and g, are two round balls, which I cannot 

 conceive the use of. 



January 1, for the third time I took a spider's eggs, and putting them into 

 a glass tube, carried them about me, to see if they would hatch. They were 

 laid by the largest spider that I had seen the last summer, and it was one of 

 the last I could meet with in the gardens. I viewed them several days without 

 opening them, and finding no alteration in them, which I attributed to the 

 cold weather, I kept them four days without looking at them, imagining I 

 should have no better luck with them than with the former ones ; but on the 

 17 th of the same month, in the morning, viewing them again, I saw 25 young 

 spiders that were come out of so many eggs, and about 25 more whose bodies 

 were but half out of the egg-shell, and some of them had their shells hanging 

 upon their tail ; and in the evening about six o'clock I reckoned 130 young ones. 

 The next day I viewed them again, and then I concluded that no more spiders 

 would come out of the eggs, and that several which I saw lying about the glass 

 were barren, and that in others the young spiders were dead, the number of 

 which I judged to be about 50, and about 10 or 12 eggs were blackish. When 

 the glass tube, where the young spiders were, had been out of my pocket but 

 1 5 minutes, in very cold weather, I could hardly discover any life or motion in 

 some of them ; but so soon as the glass tube had been a little warmed again, 

 they were brisk and lively, aud most of them got together in a company, as we 

 see in swarms of bees, and so hung about the web, where the eggs had been 

 lodged before. 



January 21st, I could perceive the 8 eyes in every spider, which before were 

 not so visible ; but now being of a brown or darkish colour, they were easily 

 distinguishable from the fore-part of their body, which was white, as the hinder 

 part was yellowish. Now if we consider what a vast number of spiders are 



