Let us leave the mothers to their business and return to the youngsters.  It is not without a certain surprise that we see the little Lycosae, at the first moment of their emancipation, hasten to ascend the heights.  Destined to live on the ground, amidst the short grass, and afterwards to settle in the permanent abode, a pit, they start by being enthusiastic acrobats.  Before descending to the low levels, their normal dwelling-place, they affect lofty altitudes.

To rise higher and ever higher is their first need.  I have not, it seems, exhausted the limit of their climbing-instinct even with a nine-foot pole, suitably furnished with branches to facilitate the escalade.  Those who have eagerly reached the very top wave their legs, fumble in space as though for yet higher stalks.  It behoves us to begin again and under better conditions.

Although the Narbonne Lycosa, with her temporary yearning for the heights, is more interesting than other Spiders, by reason of the fact that her usual habitation is underground, she is not so striking at swarming-time, because the youngsters, instead of all migrating at once, leave the mother at different periods and in small batches.  The sight will be a finer one with the common Garden or Cross Spider, the Diadem Epeira (Epeira diadema, LIN.), decorated with three white crosses on her back.

She lays her eggs in November and dies with the first cold snap.  She is denied the Lycosa’s longevity.  She leaves the natal wallet early one spring and never sees the following spring.  This wallet, which contains the eggs, has none of the ingenious structure which we admired in the Banded and in the Silky Epeira.  No longer do we see a graceful balloon-shape nor yet a paraboloid with a starry base; no longer a tough, waterproof satin stuff; no longer a swan’s-down resembling a fleecy, russet cloud; no longer an inner keg in which the eggs are packed.  The art of stout fabrics and of walls within walls is unknown here.

The work of the Cross Spider is a pill of white silk, wrought into a yielding felt, through which the new-born Spiders will easily work their way, without the aid of the mother, long since dead, and without having to rely upon its bursting at the given hour.  It is about the size of a damson.

We can judge the method of manufacture from the structure.  Like the Lycosa, whom we saw, in Chapter III., at work in one of my earthenware pans, the Cross Spider, on the support supplied by a few threads stretched between the nearest objects, begins by making a shallow saucer of sufficient thickness to dispense with subsequent corrections.  The process is easily guessed.  The tip of the abdomen goes up and down, down and up with an even beat, while the worker shifts her place a little.  Each time, the spinnerets add a bit of thread to the carpet already made.

When the requisite thickness is obtained, the mother empties her ovaries, in one continuous flow, into the centre of the bowl.  Glued together by their inherent moisture, the eggs, of a handsome orange-yellow, form a ball-shaped heap.  The work of the spinnerets is resumed.  The ball of germs is covered with a silk cap, fashioned in the same way as the saucer.  The two halves of the work are so well joined that the whole constitutes an unbroken sphere.