80 Life and Tinmortality. 
Spiders are naturally very selfish creatures. Their chief 
concern in life seems to be the gratification of their desires 
for food. They are eminently unsocial, the sexes preferring 
to live solitary lives. It is only when actuated by amatory 
influences that the females will tolerate their weaker lords, 
and in some instances it is only by stratagem and agility that 
the latter are able to accomplish the fulfilment of the law of 
their being, the females by their ugly, vicious tempers resist- 
ing to the utmost. In the case of Agalena the male is the 
stronger of the two. He, at the proper time, when the 
reproductive cells are matured, takes the female in his power- 
ful mandibles, lays her gently on one side, and inserts one of 
his palpi, whose little sacs had previously been filled with 
the fecundating discharge, into the epigynum underneath. 
After a time, necessarily brief, he rises on tiptoe, turns her 
around and over, so that she comfortably lies on the other 
side, her head being in the opposite direction, and inserts the 
other palpus. All through the operation the female lies as 
though she was dead. The ends of nature being served, the 
sexes separate, the male returning to the solitary life he 
previously led, while the female busies herself in providing 
for the duties of maternity. 
The eggs becoming mature, the latter proceeds to make a 
little web and lays them in it, practising the utmost care. 
She now covers them over with silk, which she weaves into 
a cocoon, where the young remain some time after they are 
hatched. Seldom is the laying seen, for it generally happens 
in the night-time, or in retired places. Often, in confinement, 
the spider refuses to lay at all. An egg of a spider, like 
that of any other animal, is a cell which separates from the 
body of the female, and subsequently unites with one or more 
cells that have separated from the body of the male. This 
process of union, termed fertilization, doubtless takes place 
when the eggs have attained their full size and are about 
to be laid. After being laid and hardened it is a very easy 
matter to watch their development. All that is necessary 
