Vol. xxiv] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



213 



Standards of the Number of Eggs laid by Spiders — 11.'' 



Being Averages Obtained by Actual Count of the Combined Eggs 

 of Twenty (20) Depositions or Masses. 



By A. A. GiRAULT, Xelson (Cairns). North Queensland, 

 Australia. 



The first eight of these masses were collected in a small 

 pumping station on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago, 

 Illinois, July 20, 191 1 ; the other twelve at Urbana, Illinois, 

 July 31, 191 1, in the cellar of a building on the campus of the 

 University of Illinois. As many as three of the globular, 

 brownish egg cocoons have been observed in a single web, but 

 I believe that as many as five have been recorded. The aver- 

 age obtained then represents approximately what number of 

 eggs will be found in each cocoon and not the average expecta- 

 tions from any single female which must be near from three to 

 five times more. The numbers 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7 respectively 

 are each from one nest, so that we may be assured that a 

 female may lay as many as 477, 455 and 481 eggs. It is also 

 plain that one female may put as many eggs in one cocoon as 

 another does i n two. 



* For the first of this series, see Ent. News, XXII, pp. 461-462, Dec, 1911. 



