ON ARACHNIDAp 
477 
cumstances, the mothers do not change place, not even for 
the purpose of seeking food. With respect to the other species 
of this genus, we could add nothing, except details pretty 
nearly similar to the foregoing. 
In the genus micrommata, the manners of the species have 
been but little observed, with the exception of one (sma- 
ragdina). It is found in spring on plants, and particularly 
on the yoke-elm, and on trees, of which it even gains the 
summit. Clerk says that it leaps uncommonly well, a fact 
also remarked by M. Walckenaer. It is also extremely agile 
in running. A female individual which the first of these 
naturalists had reared, gave him an opportunity of observing 
the mode in which this spider performs the business of man- 
ducation. As soon as it had seized a fly, it pierced it with 
the talons of its mandibles, then compressed it, and chewed 
it with its jaws. It seemed to move their denticulations, or 
rather the hairs with which their internal side is provided, 
then held it, and turned it over with its palpi, and then with- 
drew one of its talons and plunged it into another part. In 
the interval of these jaws, or what this naturalist terms the 
throat, a frothy matter was observed, which absorbed the 
nutritious juices expressed from the carcase. The action of 
these different organs was more easily observed when the 
body of the fly was reduced one-third. All its soft, or liquid 
substance being exhausted, the animal threw away the re- 
mains. It then cleaned the extremity of its palpi, using the 
claws of its mandibles, its jaws, and particularly by the as- 
sistance of a liquid matter which it caused to flow from the 
oesophagus. 
The female lays her eggs in June or July. She draws 
together, and binds with a great number of threads, three or 
four leaves, of which she makes a packet, which has some- 
thing of a triangular form. Its interior is lined with a thick 
silk, and in the middle of this nest is placed the cocoon itself, 
