1973] 
Benforado & Kistler — Araneus diadematus 
93 
destroyed daily with the thread left in the cage for the spider to 
digest. 
feeding: While in the tubes, the spiders were fed by placing a 
previously weighed de-winged housefly in the tube daily or every 
ten days. Those spiders that would not eat a housefly had three to 
seven unweighed gnats placed in their tube. By visual inspection the 
following day it was determined whether the fly had been eaten. The 
remains of the eaten flies were then weighed to obtain an approxi- 
mation of the amount eaten by each spider. The spiders were 
watered by wetting the cotton every other day. 
After being placed in the cages, if the spider had a web, feeding 
was by means of placing the housefly in the web ; if there was no 
web, we attempted to induce the animal to eat by placing the fly 
in front of its mouth. The heavy-fed spiders were offered at least 
one fly per day and more, if they would accept it. The light-fed 
group was fed one fly once every ten days. If on the day of feeding 
of the light-fed group a spider would not eat, a note was made and 
the attempt repeated until successful. All spiders were watered on 
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays by spraying a small amount of 
water in each cage. 
molts: From the onset of the experiment molts were recorded by 
date of the molt to give an indication of the maturation of the 
animal. 
Results 
feeding AND weight increase: At the end of a period of five 
weeks the two feeding schedules resulted in two significantly differ- 
ent weight groups. This development is shown in Figure i, which 
illustrates the increasing difference in weight between the two groups. 
At the onset of differential feeding the mean weights of the two 
groups were alike, however, a T-test between the mean weights at 
the end of the experiment is significant at the o.i % level. 
An analysis of covariance was performed on the data.. Because 
the original data was non-homogeneous, a transformation [log (x + 
io) ] was made (Winer, 1962). The initial observation was used 
as a covariate in the analysis of covariance. Because the analysis 
of covariance indicated no significant difference in the behavior 
(growth) of the two families, all figures are for both families com- 
bined. For the heavy-fed group the mean weight changed from 7.93 
mg db 1.04 on June 12 to 74.28 mg ± 10.93 on July 17. The 
mean weight of the light-fed group changed from 6.40 mg dz 0.98 
