56 WILDER, TERMEYEB'S 



I have elsewhere indicated the method of the trial by 

 me of obtaining a great abundance of spiders in a very 

 short time. We shall see that the female of the spider 

 called by Linnaeus diadema, very common with us, makes 

 five or six cocoons every year, the first of which contains 

 eight hundred eggs, and the last about four hundred. Now, 

 taking the average, we may calculate that each spider will 

 produce annually about four thousand little spiders, and 

 from twelve hdifid spiders we should have about fifty- 

 thousand eggs. It is an easy matter to obtain twelve spi- 

 ders of one kind and to have a much greater number of 

 them if attention is given to the place where a certain spe- 

 cies is wont to establish itself, so that always such a place 

 may be selected for it as is believed to be the best adapted 

 to its preservation and subsistence. Thus the domestic 

 spider is always in the corners of walls, the diadema un- 

 der balconies, the angulata among bushes, etc. Since 

 Reaumur collected, as he said, spiders of various species 

 and the small mingled with the large, it is no wonder that 

 the former became food for the latter especially if hunger 

 impelled them to it. 



I am accustomed, on finding the cocoons of a spider 

 known to me, which I wish to select, to take them, to cut 

 them across superficially in order to ascertain the quantity 

 of eggs ; and to replace the latter upon cotton in a box 

 well protected from dust and insects. There, in due time, 

 I see them come forth, and place them where I wish to feed 

 them. Every one can see how easy and how abundant, 

 with this method of mine, the increase of the spiders may 

 become 



II. 



FACILITY OF REARING SPIDERS. 



Reaumur found that his spiders perished in a short time, 

 being, as he said, destroyed by one another. It is very 

 probable to suspect that they rather perished of hunger, not 

 having, in the boxes where he placed them, means of pro- 

 curing suitable food ; or that the weaker were devoured by 

 the stronger because he had mingled different species. But 

 I must acknowledge, because experience has taught me, that 



