ESCAPE FROM THE COCOON.
These cocoons of Argiope are made late in the summer, and the young stay in them till the next season. Out of six hundred cocoons collected by Wilder in the spring, less than a quarter were entire, the rest being pierced, or torn in some way, by birds or insects; so that the spiders were saved the trouble of gnawing their way out, as they can if obliged to.
I once noticed a small Theridion gnawing at its soft cocoon, and found that one side had been made in this way much thinner than the rest of the cocoon. I put her, with the cocoon, in a bottle where I could watch her; and she soon commenced biting again, and kept it up the rest of the day. The following night the young came out.
Many spiders remain by their cocoons till the young come out; but other species, making similar ones, go away, or die, and the young get out themselves when they are old enough.
The young of Micaria cut a smooth round hole in their paper-like cocoon, just large enough for them to come out one by one.