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. [Illustration: Fig. 57.] [Illustration: Fig. 58.] The _Lycosas_ carry their cocoons about, attached to the spinnerets, as in Fig. 57, bumping them over the stones without injury to the young inside. Many spiders make their cocoons against a flat surface, where they remain attached by one side. _Attus mystaceus_ spins, before laying, a thick nest of white silk on the under side of a stone. In this she thickens a circular patch on the upper side, next the stone, and discharges her eggs upward against it, Fig. 58. They adhere, and are covered with white silk. I once had a spider of this species lay her eggs, in confinement, in a nest the under side of which had been cut away. Instead of completing the cocoon properly, she ate the eggs immediately after laying. _Epeira strix_ spins, before laying, a bunch of loose silk, Fig. 59. She touches her spinnerets, as in the figure on the left, draws them away a short distance, at the same time pressing upward with the hind-feet, as in the figure on the right; then moves the abdomen a little sidewise, and attaches the band of threads so as to form a loop. She keeps making these loops, turning round, at the same time, so as to form a rounded bunch of them, into the middle of which she afterwards lays the eggs, as in Fig. 60. The eggs, which are like a drop of jelly, are held up by the loose threads till the spider has time to spin under them a covering of stronger silk. _Epeira vulgaris_ makes a similar cocoon upward, downward, or sidewise, as may be most convenient. [Illustration: Fig. 59.] [Illustration: Fig. 60.] Most of the _Theridiidæ_ make cocoons of loose silk, held up in the web by numerous threads. Some hang the cocoon by a stem, Fig. 61. The large species of _Argiope_ makes a big pear-shaped cocoon hanging in grass or bushes, Fig. 62. A stem of loose brown silk is first made, and under this the eggs attached (at any rate this had been done in one which had been abandoned unfinished); then a cup-shaped piece is made under the eggs; the bunch of loose silk is spun over all, and finally the paper-like shell. [Illustration: Fig. 61.] [Illustration: Fig. 62.] ESCAPE FROM THE COCOON.