Their perfect quiet during the Lycosa's feast points to the possession of a stomach that knows no cravings.
Then with what are they sustained, during their seven months' upbringing on the mother's back?
One conceives a notion of exudations supplied by the bearer's body, in which case the young would feed on their mother, after the manner of parasitic vermin, and gradually drain her strength.
We must abandon this notion.

Never are they seen to put their mouths to the skin that should be a sort of teat to them.

On the other hand, the Lycosa, far from being exhausted and shrivelling, keeps perfectly well and plump.

She has the same pot-belly when she finishes rearing her young as when she began.

She has not lost weight: far from it; on the contrary, she has put on flesh: she has gained the wherewithal to beget a new family next summer, one as numerous as to-day's.
Once more, with what do the little ones keep up their strength?
We do not like to suggest reserves supplied by the egg as rectifying the animal's expenditure of vital force, especially when we consider that those reserves, themselves so close to nothing, must be economized in view of the silk, a material of the highest importance, of which a plentiful use will be made presently.