If I push open the door of the cabin, invariably I find the Spider lying motionless, as though in endless meditation.  It needs the teasing of a straw to rouse her from her apathy.  It needs the prick of hunger to bring her out of doors; and, as she is extremely temperate, her appearances outside are few and far between.  During three years of assiduous observation, in the privacy of my study, I have not once seen her explore the domain of the wire cage by day.  Not until a late hour at night does she venture forth in quest of victuals; and it is hardly feasible to follow her on her excursions.

Patience once enabled me to find her, at ten o’clock in the evening, taking the air on the flat roof of her house, where she was doubtless waiting for the game to pass.  Startled by the light of my candle, the lover of darkness at once returned indoors, refusing to reveal any of her secrets.  Only, next day, there was one more corpse hanging from the wall of the cabin, a proof that the chase was successfully resumed after my departure.

The Clotho, who is not only nocturnal, but also excessively shy, conceals her habits from us; she shows us her works, those precious historical documents, but hides her actions, especially the laying, which I estimate approximately to take place in October.  The sum total of the eggs is divided into five or six small, flat, lentiform pockets, which, taken together, occupy the greater part of the maternal home.  These capsules have each their own partition-wall of superb white satin, but they are so closely soldered, both together and to the floor of the house, that it is impossible to part them without tearing them, impossible, therefore, to obtain them separately.  The eggs in all amount to about a hundred.

The mother sits upon the heap of pockets with the same devotion as a brooding hen.  Maternity has not withered her.  Although decreased in bulk, she retains an excellent look of health; her round belly and her well-stretched skin tell us from the first that her part is not yet wholly played.

The hatching takes place early.  November has not arrived before the pockets contain the young:  wee things clad in black, with five yellow specks, exactly like their elders.  The new-born do not leave their respective nurseries.  Packed close together, they spend the whole of the wintry season there, while the mother, squatting on the pile of cells, watches over the general safety, without knowing her family other than by the gentle trepidations felt through the partitions of the tiny chambers.  The Labyrinth Spider has shown us how she maintains a permanent sitting for two months in her guard-room, to defend, in case of need, the brood which she will never see.  The Clotho does the same during eight months, thus earning the right to set eyes for a little while on her family trotting around her in the main cabin and to assist at the final exodus, the great journey undertaken at the end of a thread.