294 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORIv. 



margins to tlic sides iind bottom of the box. (Fig. 288.) This formed the 

 cocoon tent, whose dimensions were two inclies on the floor and along tlie 

 sides. June 13th, a small cluster of yellowish white spiderlings appeared 

 at the bottom of the cocoon, showing that the young had already hatched 

 and found their way outside within the intervening eighteen days. They 

 had then the aiii^earance of having been hatched a day or two. 



During the ensuing week they gradually darkened in color and were 

 joined by their fellow broodlings, who gathered in a semicircle around the 

 upper edge of tlie cocoon on the box. Here they remained six days upon 

 the top of a case of drawers near an open window. While reading on 

 the evening of June 19th by the light of an argand burner, I glanced up- 

 ward and observed that the lamp was covered with web lines that fringed 



the bottom of the por- 



A^WjUP^W^M^''''f- c;elain shade and met- 



W'0- "^ stand. Upon these 



iW/f/"/, lines forty or fifty spi- 



% '^mwi'l ^' derlings hung, in the 



'■/fi, ^Jt^^B^T"''^^ '^h^y had evidently 



^ !^ ',[Jl^t^K^^^^^y'} i^^^ issued from the 



cocoon tent, and had 



been carried by the 



/^,; ' ' ^^^^^^''' wind along a bookcase 



and across the desk to 

 the lamp, a total dis- 

 tance of fourteen feet. 

 A bridge line four feet 



FiG.m cocoon tent of Epeirasclopetaria. l»ng ^as Strung from 



the bookcase to the 

 lamp, along which the brood had clambered, attracted undoubtedly by 

 the light. There was no reason why they should have sought that particu- 

 lar spot, and many reasons why they should have gone elsewhere, but the 

 light dominated their action. (See Volume I., Fig. 141.) 



A portion of these I removed to a table, where, during the night, they 

 set up a cobweb commons of the kind heretofore described, and remained 

 grouped thereon until next morning. Then they and nearly all their fel- 

 lows were dispersed by the breeze when the windows were opened. It thus 

 aj)peared that ex{)Osure to and the force of the wind determined the fact 

 of a quick and wide distribution of spiderlings immediately after egress. 

 In tlie case of the other broods that were protected from the effects of 

 strong winds, the young remained M-ithin a limited space for two or three 

 weeks. Most of them gradually disappeared by aeronautic flight, mount- 

 ing in that way to the ceiling and walls; some of them spun small orbs 

 in the vicinity, and some remained upon the counnon web to the end. 



