20 NATURE’S CRAFTSMEN 
spider follows the thatch idea: she fashions a se¬ 
ries of little egg-filled discs and laps them one 
upon another, binding them fast with silken cords. 
When a string is completed, the ingenious little 
mother spins a silken tube down along its length 
for her own occupancy, and covers the whole with 
a tent of leaves. Another tube-loving spider, 
which is usually found in grass marshes and 
among cat-tail flags, builds a long three-sided 
nursery by folding over a broad blade of grass or 
flag, and lining it with a tubular case, which 
serves not only as a container for her egg-sac but 
as her own coffin. 
“ Most of the spiders I have spoken of die 
shortly after their egg cases are completed, and 
a perfectly dreadful time the little spiderlings 
have eating one another, until spring comes and 
the few robust fellows that are left break through 
the old storm-tattered case. Probably in a well- 
filled sac of eggs, not more than ten or a dozen 
spiderlings ever manage to get out into the big, 
wide world! Other spider mothers, however, live 
to guard their homes and to rear up the little 
spiderlings in the way they should go. Some of 
these little mothers are so devoted they never 
leave their egg-sacs out of sight an instant. In¬ 
deed, the majority of them will not budge an inch 
without packing the egg case along,—a real bur¬ 
den this often is, too. The first day off that I 
