COCOON LIFE AND BABYHOOD. 243 



The young do not all leave the mother at the same time, but go out in 



detachments, when about three weeks old. When three or four weeks old 



the mother manifests a disposition to send them adrift. She 



eaving j^ ^^^ longer quiet and patient, but frequently picks up one of 



her babies and throws it across the jar, yet seems to be careful 



not to injure it. She behaves much in the same way that the higher 



animals do in weaning their young. 



When the spiderlings leave the mother's back they run up a tree or 

 some neighboring plant and are lost to sight. Some linger with the mother 

 until the cold weather begins. The mother clears the ragged webs and 

 moults from her body and looks plump and bright. She sits on the top 

 of her tower with the remaining little ones stationed around the edge. 

 They now seldom rest upon her, and when she goes within her burrow 

 they all follow. Upon her reappearance a few spiderlings, it was observed, 

 had availed themselves of the opportunity of being carried up upon her 

 back, but they did not remain there. 



One of this brood was observed making a small burrow in the jar in 

 which it was confined. The tube was less than one-fourth inch in diam- 

 eter, and the spiderling was two days in excavating an inch below 

 -. ., ,. the surface. On the top of this burrow it built up a tiny tower 

 fully half an inch high, which was made wholly of earth inter- 

 mingled with web. In digging, the diminutive architect brought the little 

 pellets in its mandibles, and those which it did not wish to use in the 

 tower it let fall by the side. It did not shoot the earth to a distance as 

 the adult Turret spider does, but stood on the top of its tower, opened its 

 mandibles, and let the pellet drop. At the same time it threw apart its 

 legs as if that would help it to dispose of the earth, a movement which 

 Mrs. Treat sj)eaks of as being very baby like. 



The actions of this little Tvu-ret builder showed emphaticall}^ that she had 

 shut herself apart from the rest of the family and w^ould not be annoyed by 

 them. Frequently one of her brothers or sisters, meandering about, came 

 to its little tower, and not often would one pass by without going up and 

 looking in. This always seemed to exasperate the small householder. She 

 dropped her work, sprang from the top of her tower, and sometimes chased 

 the fleeing brother half across the jar, then turned and went back to her 

 work. No such disposition was manifested, as far as Mrs. Treat observed, 

 as long as the j'ounglings remained with the mother. During that period 

 they crowd together, walk over each other, and never have any quarrels. 



At the end of the sixth week after birth most of the brood, if per- 

 mitted, would abandon the maternal nest and build tubes and towers for 

 themselves. Two had erected their towers within two inches of 

 Prev "'^^' '"'ot'her, and they sat on the tops of their turrets, often 



facing each other and watching the tiny scavenger beetles that 

 bred in the jar and lived on the refuse insects thrown out by the motlier. 



