THE TARANTULA’S BABIES
In the early days of September, the young ones, who have been some time hatched, are ready to come out. The pill rips open along the middle fold. We have read of this fold. Does the mother, feeling the brood quicken inside the satin wrapper, herself break open the vessel at the right moment? It seems probable. On the other hand, it may burst of itself, as does the Banded Spider’s balloon, a tough wallet which opens a breach of its own accord, long after the mother has ceased to exist.
As they come out of the pill, the little Tarantulas, to the number of about a couple of hundred, clamber on the mother Tarantula’s back and there sit motionless, jammed close together, forming a sort of bark of mingled legs and bodies. The mother cannot be recognized under this live cloak. When the hatching is over, the wallet is loosened from the spinnerets and cast aside as a worthless rag.
The little ones are very good: none stirs, none tries to get more room for himself at his neighbor’s expense. What are they doing there, so quietly? They allow themselves to be carted about, like the young of the Opossum. Whether she sit in long meditation at the bottom of her den, or come to the opening, in mild weather, to bask in the sun, the Tarantula never throws off her greatcoat of swarming youngsters until the fine season comes.
If, in the middle of winter, in January, or February, I happen, out in the fields, to ransack the Spider’s dwelling, after the rain, snow, and frost have battered it and, as a rule, destroyed the curb at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigor, still carrying her family. This upbringing of her youngsters on her back lasts five or six months at least, without interruption. The celebrated American carrier, the Opossum, who lets her children go after a few weeks’ carting, cuts a poor figure beside the Tarantula.
“Does she help them to regain their place on her back?”
What do the little ones eat on their mother’s spine? Nothing, so far as I know. I do not see them grow larger. I find them, when they finally leave to shift for themselves, just as they were when they left the bag.
During the bad season, the mother herself eats very little. At long intervals she accepts, in my jars, a belated Locust, whom I have captured, for her benefit, in the sunnier nooks. In order to keep herself in condition, as she is when she is dug up in the course of my winter excavations, she must therefore sometimes break her fast and come out in search of prey, without, of course, discarding her live cloak of youngsters.