A DOME BENEATH THE WATERS. 191 



brings her prey to eat it, and here she places her eggs, 

 spinning a saucer-shaped cocoon and fixing it against 

 the inner side and near tlie top. In tliis cocoon are 

 about a hundred eggs, round as bird-sliot but very 

 much smaller. 



Here the young spiders are born, and here they 

 remain imtil they are large and strong enough to take 

 care of themselves, when they are turned adrift by 

 their mother to construct other subaquatic houses 

 similar to those in which they first drew breath. Mr. 

 Thomas Bell, the English naturalist, first observed 

 and described the manner in which the spider manages 

 to fill her dome with air. 



" The one now referred to," he says, " began to 

 weave her beautiful web about five o'clock in the 

 afternoon. After much preliminary preparation she 

 ascended to the surface and obtained a bubble of air, 

 with which she immediately and quickly descended, ami 

 the bubble was disengaged from the body and left in 

 connection with the web. As the nest was on one side 

 in contact with the glass, I could easily observe all 

 her movements. Presently she ascended again and 

 brought down another bubble, which was similarly 

 deposited. 



" In this way no less than fourteen journeys were 

 performed, sometimes two or three very quickly, one 

 after the other ; at other times with a considerable 

 interval between them, during which time the animal 

 was employed in extending and giving shape to the 

 beautiful transparent bell, getting into it, pushing it 

 out in one place and amending it in another, and 



