118 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
iT. 
According to this observer, if a spider (Trochosa) lose a foot while 
very young, it will be restored at the last moult with such perfection that 
it cannot be distinguished from the others. If the member be 
oad lost at a more advanced age, after the eighth or ninth moult, it 
ane: will be renewed imperfectly, and although the number of joints 
will be complete the restored limb can easily be distinguished. This is 
illustrated in Fig. 79, a drawing of the Huntsman spider, Heteropota ven- 
atoria, a specimen which I obtained in Florida, one of whose hind legs 
is seen to be shorter than the other, a moulting defect. In such cases 
the defective limb is usually not only shorter but smaller, of paler color 
and with less numerous hairs. Such a fact indicates that Nature has 
provided a certain amount of vital force and substance, for the exigen- 
cies of a spider’s life, which cannot wholly answer the draughts made by 
the regeneratiom of adult limbs, although responding invariably to the | 
BS TSS 
SS Sort ep | 
Fic. 79. Huntsman spider with one leg (4) shortened in moulting. 
recuperative demands of early life. I have already referred to another 
case in point, a large tarantula, when speaking of the dangers of the 
moulting period.? 
As to the relative perfection with which lost limbs are reproduced, 
Blackwall considered it to be in inverse ratio to the extent of injury. 
Thus he found that palps and legs detached at the coxa were 
Imperfect ysually reproduced symmetrical but diminutive; while those 
sare n, *mputated at the articulation of the digital with the radial joint, 
and near the middle of the tibia or of the metatarsus, were 
always much larger and unsymmetrical when restored. In point of fact, 
therefore, the development of the new limb depends upon the vital capacity 
of the undetached part. Thus, if a leg be amputated near the middle of 
1See Chapter V., above. 
