The hatching occupies a day or two. The shell, or rather skin, cracks along the lines between the legs, and comes off in rags; and the spider slowly stretches itself, and creeps about. It is now pale and soft, and without any hairs or spines, and only small claws on its feet; but, in a few days, it gets rid of another skin, and now begins to look like a spider. The eyes become darker colored; marks on the thorax become more distinct, and a dark stripe appears across the edge of each segment of the abdomen. The hairs are long, and few in number, and arranged in rows across the abdomen and along the middle of the thorax, Fig. 65. Before the next moult, they usually leave the cocoon, and for a time live together in a web spun in common. A brood of young _Epeira_ may often be seen looking like a ball of wool in the top of a bush, while below them, connected by threads to their roost, are the skins left at their second moult, and farther down, also connected by threads, the cocoon with the first skins. [Illustration: Fig. 65.] _Dolomedes_ spins a nest in which the young live for a while after hatching. The young of the running spiders, _Lycosidæ_, when they come out of the cocoon get on their mother’s back, and are carried round by her for some time. Where large broods of young spiders live together, they soon begin to eat one another; and, if kept in confinement, one or two out of a cocoon full, may be raised without any other food. Wilder noticed this in _Nephila plumipes_, and believes it is the natural habit of young spiders, and not the result of confinement. [Illustration: Fig. 66.] [Illustration: Fig. 67.] As spiders grow larger, they have to moult from time to time. This process is shown by Wilder in Figs. 66, 67; and I have seen the same operation in _Argiope_. The spider hangs herself by a thread from the spinnerets to the centre of the web. The skin cracks around the thorax, just over the first joints of the legs; and the top part falls forward, being held only at the front edge. The skin of the abdomen breaks irregularly along the sides and back, and shrinks together in a bunch. The spider now hangs by a short thread from the spinnerets, and works to free her legs from the old skin, Fig. 66. This takes about quarter of an hour; and then she drops down, hanging by her spinnerets like a wet rag, Fig. 67. If struck while in this condition, she can do nothing, not even draw her legs away. After ten or fifteen minutes, the legs begin to strengthen; and she draws them gradually up toward her, works them up and down a few times, and is soon able to get into the web again.