When the summer heat arrives, in June, the young ones, probably aided by their mother, pierce the walls of their cells, leave the maternal tent, of which they know the secret outlet well, take the air on the threshold for a few hours and then fly away, carried to some distance by a funicular aeroplane, the first product of their spinning-mill.

The elder Clotho remains behind, careless of this emigration which leaves her alone.  She is far from being faded indeed, she looks younger than ever.  Her fresh colour, her robust appearance suggest great length of life, capable of producing a second family.  On this subject I have but one document, a pretty far-reaching one, however.  There were a few mothers whose actions I had the patience to watch, despite the wearisome minutiae of the rearing and the slowness of the result.  These abandoned their dwellings after the departure of their young; and each went to weave a new one for herself on the wire net-work of the cage.

They were rough-and-ready summaries, the work of a night.  Two hangings, one above the other, the upper one flat, the lower concave and ballasted with stalactites of grains of sand, formed the new home, which, strengthened daily by fresh layers, promised to become similar to the old one.  Why does the Spider desert her former mansion, which is in no way dilapidated—­far from it—­and still exceedingly serviceable, as far as one can judge?  Unless I am mistaken, I think I have an inkling of the reason.

The old cabin, comfortably wadded though it be, possesses serious disadvantages:  it is littered with the ruins of the children’s nurseries.  These ruins are so close-welded to the rest of the home that my forceps cannot extract them without difficulty; and to remove them would be an exhausting business for the Clotho and possibly beyond her strength.  It is a case of the resistance of Gordian knots, which not even the very spinstress who fastened them is capable of untying.  The encumbering litter, therefore, will remain.

If the Spider were to stay alone, the reduction of space, when all is said, would hardly matter to her:  she wants so little room, merely enough to move in!  Besides, when you have spent seven or eight months in the cramping presence of those bedchambers, what can be the reason of a sudden need for greater space?  I see but one:  the Spider requires a roomy habitation, not for herself—­she is satisfied with the smallest den—­but for a second family.  Where is she to place the pockets of eggs, if the ruins of the previous laying remain in the way?  A new brood requires a new home.  That, no doubt, is why, feeling that her ovaries are not yet dried up, the Spider shifts her quarters and founds a new establishment.

The facts observed are confined to this change of dwelling.  I regret that other interests and the difficulties attendant upon a long upbringing did not allow me to pursue the question and definitely to settle the matter of the repeated layings and the longevity of the Clotho, as I did in that of the Lycosa.