CHAPTER XIV 



ARACHNIDA EMBOLOBKANCHIATA {COXTIXUED) ARANEAE 



{coxtinumd) 



habits ecdysis teeatment of young migration webs 



nests egg-cocoons poison fertility enemies 



protective coloration mimicry senses intelligence 



mating habits fossil spiders 



EARLY LIFE OF SPIDERS. 



Ecdysis or Moulting. — Spiders vindergo no metamorphosis — 

 that is to say, no marked change of form takes place, as is so 

 often the case among Insects, in the period subsequent to tiie 

 hatching of the egg. This fact, by the b)', is a great trouble to 

 collectors, as it is generally extremely difficult, and sometimes 

 quite impossible, to identify immature specimens with certainty. 



But although unmistakably a spider as soon as it leaves the 

 egg, the animal is, at first, in many respects incomplete, and it is 

 only after a series of moults, usually about nine in number, that 

 it attains its full perfection of form. 



Until the occurrence of its first moult it is incapable of feed- 

 ing or spinning, mouth and spinning tubes being clogged by the 

 membrane it then throws off. It is at first pale-coloured and 

 less thickly clothed with hairs and spines than it eventually 

 becomes, and the general proportions of the body and the arrange- 

 ment of the eyes are by no means those of the adult in miniature, 

 but will be greatly modified by unequal growth in various direc- 

 tions. It speedily, however, attains its characteristic shape and 

 markings, and after one or two ecdyses little alteration is to be 

 noticed, except increase in size, until the final moult, when the 

 spider at length becomes sexually mature. 



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