Habits of Spiders as regards their Young. 193 



season), and made upon animals in an unnatural state; but as, from the 

 way in which it is given, it looks more like a general assertion than the 

 result of personal observation, I suspect that like many of its class it will 

 prove an erroneous one, and that protection is all for which they stand 

 indebted to the parent. 



It appears to me that in Spiders the following gradation is in a great 

 measure followed, viz, 



1st. Those which pay no regard to the cocoons when deposited, and 

 desert both them and the web altogether as soon as the number is com- 

 pleted: e. g. Epeira Cacti,* or the Aranea fasciala, Fab. 



2nd. Those which remain in the web, but take no notice of the cocoon 

 after it is deposited: e. g. Epeira fasciata, Walck. 



3rd. Those which remain near the cocoon until it hatches, but pay no 

 attention to the young ; e. g. Epeira castrensis,* &c. 



4th. Those which sit upon the cocoon : e. g. Clubiona, Salticits, &c. 

 5th, Those which carry it under the belly when they move, and after- 

 wards fix it on the web and partly hold it by their fore legs : e. g. The- 

 ridion infiatum.* 



6th. Those which carry it between the mandibles and never quit it 

 until it hatches : e. g. Pholcus phalanyioides ; and 



7th. Those which carry it always at the anus, and protect the young 

 for a certain period : e. g. Eycosa. 



This latter, as far as my observations go, is the extent to which paren- 

 tal affection, as some innocently call it, has carried Spiders ; and although 

 a gentleman, in one of the late Numbers of the Zoological Journal, pos- 

 sesses a Baucis and Philemon as exemplars of his " Loves of the Spiders,^^ 

 and seems to hint that the time may not be far distant when the " etiam 

 " in amoribus saeva" may be proved a gross libel upon the lady, yet 1 

 fear that the matron-like qualities of a dry nurse will even then remain 

 ** a consummation to be wished for." By the bye, I suspect that al- 

 though in that instance the dalliance seemed to last a most unreasonable 

 time, yet that she must either, in the quaint phraseology of old White, 



* As I have never been able to procure the work of M. Walckenaer, and have 

 no fuller guide to species than Latreille's Histoire &c., I have been obliged to 

 give pro tempore names, by way of distinction. 

 Vol. V. N 



