174 NATURE S CRAFTSMEN 
on their silken ropes—the aeroplane of Nature’s 
own invention. It is fashioned in the hour of 
need, and promptly abandoned and forgotten at 
the end of the journey. For the young Lycosas 
never make but one flight, and that the one which 
carries them far from their mother’s ken. On 
alighting, they wander here and there hunting 
and feeding till summer is well on the wane. 
Then come a number of hasty weddings and the 
hurried business of getting a burrow dug and an 
egg-sac made and into the sunshine. 
“As for Madam Lycosa, the mother of this 
new generation of spiders, after her fledgelings 
have all left her, a matter perhaps of a week or 
two if the weather be fair, she goes on with her 
hunting, pursuing her career of robber and brig¬ 
and with renewed zest, until she, too, is warned 
by the shortness of the days to get an egg-sac 
hung while the great incubator is still near 
enough to do the hatching. If the Fates are 
kind, she will raise several more families one 
after another; for her life is a long one, as lives 
are counted in the insect world.” 
