COCOON LIFE AND BABYHOOD. 



241 



On June 11th, one week after the hatching of the young Lycosids, one 

 hundred liad abandoned the maternal percli and were dispersed over tlie 

 inner surface of the jar and U[)on a series of lines stretched from side to 

 side. About half as many more remained upon the motlier's back, but 

 by the 13th, two days thereafter, all had dismounted. In the meantime 

 they had increased in size at least half, apparently without food.' 



One summer, at the steamboat landing of I^ake Saratoga, New York, 

 between the platform and the logs driven as piles to protect it, I observed 

 a large nest of interlacing lines within which hung a round co- 

 Young coon from half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Imme- 

 medes diately beneath the cocoon many young spiders were massed in 

 colony, hanging inverted, in the usual posture, from t^ie crossed 

 lines of the maze. These were 

 the little fellows who had been 

 hatched within the swinging 

 egg bag, and who had doubt- 

 less issued therefrom within 

 the last week or ten days. At 

 least, they were so well grown 

 that they might have been of 

 that age. 



The cocoon was so evi- 

 dently of the Lycosid charac- 

 ter that I was for a moment 

 perplexed to find it in such 

 a position. But, remembering 

 the habit of Dolomedes, I in- 

 ferred that this may have been 

 the cocoon nest of one of the 

 large Dolomede spiders that 

 frequent the border's of our 

 American lakes and other wa- 

 ters. I captured some of the 

 young spiders, with some diffi- 

 culty however, for they were 

 old and active enough to scamper away upon the least agitation of the 

 snare. An examination showed that they were young Dolomedes, proba- 

 bly Dolomedes tenebrosus, a spider that attains great size inider favor- 

 able circumstances. No doubt, the mother had carried lier cocoon along 

 the shore, hiding among rocks or underneath the platform of the boat 

 landing, until Nature prompted her to the last action characteristic of her 



Fiu. '263. View ol" Dolomede cocoon in site, and part of the 

 brood hanging to the supporting lines. 



' Proceedings Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1884, page 138, " How Lycosa fiibricatt's her round 

 cocoon." 



