Let us add that, for many months yet, until the final emancipation comes, she will carry them without drawing any distinction between them and her own young.  Henceforth, the two families, united in so tragic a fashion, will form but one.  We see how greatly out of place it would be to speak, in this connection, of mother-love and its fond manifestations.

Does the Lycosa at least feed the younglings who, for seven months, swarm upon her back?  Does she invite them to the banquet when she has secured a prize?  I thought so at first; and, anxious to assist at the family repast, I devoted special attention to watching the mothers eat.  As a rule, the prey is consumed out of sight, in the burrow; but sometimes also a meal is taken on the threshold, in the open air.  Besides, it is easy to rear the Lycosa and her family in a wire-gauze cage, with a layer of earth wherein the captive will never dream of sinking a well, such work being out of season.  Everything then happens in the open.

Well, while the mother munches, chews, expresses the juices and swallows, the youngsters do not budge from their camping-ground on her back.  Not one quits its place nor gives a sign of wishing to slip down and join in the meal.  Nor does the mother extend an invitation to them to come and recruit themselves, nor put any broken victuals aside for them.  She feeds and the others look on, or rather remain indifferent to what is happening.  Their perfect quiet during the Lycosa’s feast points to the posession of a stomach that knows no cravings.

Then with what are they sustained, during their seven months’ upbringing on the mother’s back?  One conceives a notion of exudations supplied by the bearer’s body, in which case the young would feed on their mother, after the manner of parasitic vermin, and gradually drain her strength.

We must abandon this notion.  Never are they seen to put their mouths to the skin that should be a sort of teat to them.  On the other hand, the Lycosa, far from being exhausted and shrivelling, keeps perfectly well and plump.  She has the same pot-belly when she finishes rearing her young as when she began.  She has not lost weight:  far from it; on the contrary, she has put on flesh:  she has gained the wherewithal to beget a new family next summer, one as numerous as to-day’s.

Once more, with what do the little ones keep up their strength?  We do not like to suggest reserves supplied by the egg as rectifying the beastie’s expenditure of vital force, especially when we consider that those reserves, themselves so close to nothing, must be economized in view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of which a plentiful use will be made presently.  There must be other powers at play in the tiny animal’s machinery.