A MASTERLY BRIGAND 169 
this fold gives way. Some think that the mother 
herself breaks open the wrapper at just the right 
moment, but it is possible that it bursts, as you 
will remember the banded spider’s wallet does 
when the contents become too stout and active to 
be confined longer. 
“As they come from the sac, the little Lycosas , 
numbering a couple of hundred or so, climb to 
their patient mother’s back and settle themselves 
so tightly together that the unobservant person 
might pass them by as a sort of shaggy bark or 
scale covering. An odd overcoat they are for¬ 
sooth, and one which the weary mother may not 
lay aside even for one moment through all the fall 
and winter and until the warm days of spring are 
at hand. Like young opossums, the spiderlings 
insist on being carried everywhere, but instead of 
a free ride of five or six weeks’ duration, theirs is 
a matter of months. If by chance some dozen or 
so of them get spilled off, they are not lost. They 
scamper about till they find one of their mother’s 
legs and climb up this staunch pillar to their 
pleasant haven. 
“ Strangely enough, so far as any one knows, 
the little spiderlings do not eat a bite while they 
live thus huddled together. Neither do they 
grow any larger. At the age of seven months, 
when it has become warm enough for them to be 
trusted abroad alone, they are no larger than 
