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CHAP. 29.—THE GENERATION OF SPIDERS.

Spiders couple1 backwards, and produce maggots like eggs; for I ought not to defer making some mention of this subject, seeing, in fact, that of most insects there is hardly anything else to be said. All these eggs they lay in their webs, but scattered about, as they leap from place to place while laying them. The phalangium is the only spider that lays a considerable number of them, in a hole; and as soon as ever the progeny is hatched it devours its mother, and very often the male parent as well, for that, too, aids in the process of incubation. These last produce as many as three hundred eggs, the others a smaller number. Spiders take three days to hatch their eggs. They come to their full growth in twenty-eight days.

1 They copulate in a manner dissimilar to that of any other insects the male fecundates the female by the aid of feelers, which he introduces into the vulva of the female situate beneath the anterior part of the abdomen.

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    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CYRENA´ICA
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