ON ARACHNIDA. 477 



cumstances, the mothers do not change place, not even for 

 the purpose of seeking food. With respect to the other species 

 of this genus, we could add nothing, except details pretty 

 nearly similar to the foregoing. 



In the genus micrommata, the manners of the species have 

 been but little observed, with the exception of one [sma- 

 ragdina). It is found in spring on plants, and particularly 

 on the yoke-elm, and on trees, of which it even gains the 

 summit. Clerk says that it leaps uncommonly well, a fact 

 also remarked by M. Walckenaer. It is also extremely agile 

 in running. A female individual which the first of these 

 naturalists had reared, gave him an opportunity of observing 

 the mode in which this spider performs the business of man- 

 ducation. As soon as it had seized a fly, it pierced it with 

 the talons of its mandibles, then compressed it, and chewed 

 it with its jaws. It seemed to move their denticulations, or 

 rather the hairs with which their internal side is provided, 

 then held it, and turned it over with its palpi, and then with- 

 drew one of its talons and plunged it into another part. In 

 the interval of these jaws, or what this naturalist terms the 

 throat, a frothy matter was observed, which absorbed the 

 nutritious juices expressed from the carcase. The action of 

 these different organs was more easily observed when the 

 body of the fly was reduced one-third. All its soft, or liquid 

 substance being exhausted, the animal threw away the re- 

 mains. It then cleaned the extremity of its palpi, using the 

 claws of its mandibles, its jaws, and particularly by the as- 

 sistance of a liquid matter which it caused to flow from the 

 oesophagus. 



The female lays her eggs in June or July. She draws 

 together, and binds with a great number of threads, three or 

 four leaves, of which she makes a packet, which has some- 

 thing of a triangular form. Its interior is lined with a thick 

 silk, and in the middle of this nest is placed the cocoon itself, 



