When the eggs are mature, the female proceeds, like the male, to make a little web, and lays the eggs on it. Then she covers them over with silk, forming a cocoon, in which the young remain till some time after they are hatched. The laying of the eggs is seldom seen; for the spider does it in the night, or in retired places; and often, in confinement, refuses to lay at all.
Fig. 56.
The female Drassus, [Fig. 56], spins a little web A across her nest, and drops the eggs E on it, as in the figure. They are soft, and mixed with liquid, and are discharged in one or two drops, like jelly. They quickly soak up the liquid, and become dry on the surface, sometimes adhering slightly together.
After the eggs are laid, the spider covers them with silk, drawing the threads over them from one side to the other, and fastening them to the edges of the web below. When the covering is complete, she bites off the threads that hold the cocoon to the nest, and finishes off the edges with her jaws.
The Lycosidæ make their cocoons in the same way, but rounder, and showing only slightly the seam where the upper part was attached to the lower.
Fig. 57.