. American spiders and their spinning work. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits. Spiders. 180 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. Night Cocoon ing. until the young are hatched. However, it must be said that, with Salti- grades at least, there is a tendency before cocooning to prepare a perma- nent dwelUng tent, to which, when the proper time approaclies, the mother will resort to deposit her eggs. Lycosids also strongly incline to spin and burrow a cocooning house after their kind. But inasmuch as they deport t
. American spiders and their spinning work. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits. Spiders. 180 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. Night Cocoon ing. until the young are hatched. However, it must be said that, with Salti- grades at least, there is a tendency before cocooning to prepare a perma- nent dwelUng tent, to which, when the proper time approaclies, the mother will resort to deposit her eggs. Lycosids also strongly incline to spin and burrow a cocooning house after their kind. But inasmuch as they deport their cocoons, they are apt to move about from site to site with their egg bags dangling at' their tails, stalking prey and bivouacking in any con- venient refuge. II. I infer that female spiders habitually prefer the night or early morn- ing hours for cocooning. At least I have never been able to observe any species laying eggs, although I have frequently and quite per- sistently watched, both in artificial and natural sites, with a view to such observation. I am satisfied that it is within the power of the female to control the maternal function and compel Na- ture to await lier pleasure for a considerable length of time. I cannot otherwise well account for some experiences with my captives. Moreover, I have spent many days during the last fourteen or fifteen years in wan- dering among haunts of spiders, north, south, east, and west, in our own country and Europe, but have never once surprised a female in the act of ovipositing. This leads mc to the con- clusion that spiders must commonly choose the night or early morning as the time for laying their eggs. Others, however, have been more fortunate ; and, judging from their ac- counts, and reasoning from the vari- ous stages at which I have partially observed the process, by putting the pieces of observation together, we obtain a tolerably accurate idea of the mother spider's mode of procedure. Just before cocooning, the eggs w
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectspiders, bookyear1889
