40(3 CLASS ARACHNIDA. 



more downy and soft, where the sacs of eggs, and the young 

 ones newly disclosed, are to be shut up. Although the exter- 

 nal cap or pavilion is designedly, without doubt, more or less 

 soiled by foreign bodies, which serve to conceal its presence, 

 the apartment of the industrious fabricator is always scrupu- 

 lously clean. The pouches which enclose the eggs are four, 

 five, or even six, for each habitation, which, nevertheless, 

 forms but a single habitation. These pouches are of a lenti- 

 cular form, and are more than four lines in diameter : they are 

 formed of a sort of taffeta as white as snow, and furnished 

 internally with a down of the finest kind. It is only at the 

 end of December, or in the month of January, that the laying 

 of the eggs takes place ; it was therefore necessary, beforehand, 

 to provide for the defence of their progeny against both the 

 rigour of the season and hostile incursions. Every thing of 

 this kind has been carefully done. The receptacle of this 

 precious deposit is separated from the web, immediately ap- 

 plied upon the stone, by a soft down, and from the external cap, 

 by the various stories of which I have spoken. Among the 

 emarginations which border the tent, some are altogether 

 closed by the continuity of the stuff; others have their edges 

 simply lapped over, so that the uroctea, by raising them, may 

 issue at will fi-om the tent, and re-enter. When it quits its 

 domicile to proceed to the chase, it has little cause to fear 

 that its habitation should be invaded, for itself alone possesses 

 the secret of the impenetrable emarginations, and the key to 

 those by which it can introduce itself. When the young ones 

 are in a state to do without maternal cares, they take their 

 departure and proceed to establish elsewhere their particular 

 habitations, while the mother dies in her own tent. Thus the 

 last is at once the cradle and the tomb of the uroctea." 



Drassus, IValck., 

 Differ from Clotho in many characters. Their forceps are 



