How Animals Work. 



softest satin, ornamented at its upper end with silken 

 bands of black and brown in the form of a wavy pattern. 

 Inside it has a bed of soft reddish-brown silk all puffed 

 out into a fluffy mass, in the midst of which, safe and 

 warm, repose the spider's precious eggs. Quite a 

 thick wad of white silk is woven by the spider to fill 

 the neck of this elaborate cocoon, which is finished off 

 with a dainty scalloped edge. Another spider weaves 

 a cocoon resembling a cup in shape, to which a thick 

 lid is fitted, the whole being slung amidst the stems 

 of grasses and wild plants, which have been drawn 

 closer around the cocoon by a network of silken threads 

 so as to provide additional protection. The cocoon 

 encloses a mass of soft silk which enshrouds the egg- 

 pad composed of loosely woven silk. Caudata, the 

 little tailed spider, does not trust her cocoon to the 

 swaying stems of branches, nor does she believe in 

 placing " all her eggs in one basket." She cuts out the 

 spirals from the upper section of her orb web, and in 

 this space weaves a series of bead-like cocoons ? from 

 three to eight in number, each about the size of a pea, 

 formed of fairly dense yellowish silk, and each con- 

 taining a number of eggs. Ultimately the cocoons 

 become more or less decorated with the remains of 

 beetles and flies, mother spider in this way utilizing 

 the uneatable fragments of her victims as a screen 

 to further protect her cocoons. ^ Another spider, called 

 Reparium, constructs a silken tent about one and a 

 half to two inches in length and some half an inch in 

 diameter, the exterior of which she covers with pellets 

 of earth, bits of grass, withered leaves, or any similar 

 plant debris that may be at hand, and which will serve 



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