the control of this wonderful maternal resolution, slackened and fell abroad.[1]
I need scarcely say that the small spiders were killed by the spirit in a very few instants, but it is almost certain that the mother was alive and conscious for half an hour. Now this pain can easily be spared by placing large spiders for about ten minutes in a closed box with a piece of cotton wool steeped in chloroform beside them, before dropping them into the spirit of wine, a system which I have since that day adopted and found to answer perfectly.
I examined these young spiders carefully, hoping to detect some males among them, but the males, though they differ markedly from the females when adult in their smaller size and curiously enlarged palpi, do not appear to afford any distinctive mark at this early period. It appeared that these spiders had been but recently hatched, for some among them were still semi-transparent.
I have never found young spiders in the nests of Cteniza fodiens or Nemesia cæmentaria.
M. de Walckenaer[2] quotes a statement made by M. Rossi to the effect that Cteniza fodiens carries its young on her back, as certain species of Lycosa (Tarantula) do. He points out the interest which would attach to this observation if confirmed, as showing a similarity in habit between the two groups, which are otherwise nearly related.
- ↑ My own impression is that this act was one of conscious protection on the part of the mother spider; but Mr. Pickard-Cambridge doubts this, and would attribute the action to the tendency which spiders commonly display to clutch at any material object when dying in this way.
- ↑ Walckenaer (C. A. de), Les Aranéides de France (date?), p. 5.
