164 
Psyche 
[June-August 
of it had been carried some distance away. Most of the rubbish 
lay scattered at a distance of from eight to fifteen inches from 
the nest. 
Her actions in regard to cleanliness appealed to me as com" 
mendable until I discovered that in her zeal she had also carried 
out and thrown away her own cocoon which she had just made; 
I wondered if she was not “throwing out the baby with the 
bath.” Such a mental lapse or miscarriage of instinct caught 
my attention at once, and I watched for developments. But 
during the next few days, her behavior exhibited nothing short 
of maternal solicitude. As related above, in her early morning 
house-cleaning, she carried out the cocoon to a distance of eight 
inches, where it lay apparently discarded. The second morning 
thereafter I found the nest clean and the debris still scattered 
where she had dropped it. At 8 a. m. I dropped into the criss- 
cross webs above her den two wasp larvae and a horse-fly, to 
tempt her appetite. At 9 p. m. the same day, I found the food 
items just where I had placed them, but to my astonishment, 
the cocoon that had lain on the floor eight inches away was now 
in the web, about two inches above her hollow nest, and the 
mother was clinging tenaceously to it. I promptly withdrew to 
avoid alarming her. My interpretation was that she was car- 
rying the cocoon back to her den; an hour later when I again 
switched on the light, I found the cocoon nicely at rest on the 
bottom of the nest, and the mother clinging (I wish I dared say 
affectionately) to it. Her memory of her lost cocoon never failed 
her during the period of two and one-half days. 
Quite likely the instinct-monger will interpret this be“ 
havior as a matter of accident; he will say that ins- 
tinctively the spider carries food to the nest, and merely grabbed 
the cocoon in error. But I repeat that on top of the web were 
still entangled, three choice pieces of food that had remained 
untouched since morning, but she did not drag these nearby 
articles of food into her nest, but went afar and brought in the 
cocoon which she, in the heat of house-cleaning excitment, 
had discarded. Furthermore, let anyone who doubts the exis- 
tence of maternal instinct here look at the picture and see the 
