Chapter 3

[131]Mr. Pickard-Cambridge has once more kindly undertaken the task of naming and describing my collections of trap-door spiders, and the results of his labours will be found at the end of the present work.

[132]I take this opportunity of thanking him for the compliment. A description of this new species will be found at p. 254, below.

The females of the trueCteniza fodiensare far larger than those of our new Mentonese species, and construct their nests in dry and exposed places, instead of in the moist and shady ivy-covered banks selected by the latter. I have foundCteniza Moggridgiiat San Remo and Mentone, and it will probably be also discovered at Nice, but I failed to detect it either at Cannes or Hyères.

The Corsican male at the first glance curiously resembles that found at Mentone, but differs essentially in details and especially in having the surface of the caput unbroken, whereas the caput of the latter presents a very peculiar character in an impressed line which runs across it from side to side (figs. A 1 and A 2). Both agree, however, in being strangely unlike their females.

The other builder of a nest of the cork type at Mentone was, as has been already stated, described and figured inAnts and Spidersunder the name ofNemesia cæmentaria. Now the trueN. cæmentariaof Latreille is found at Montpellier, the classical habitat where the first discovery of trap-door spiders in Europe was made towards the end of the last century, but its true characters have been hitherto but imperfectly known.

I have lately been able to secure several specimens at this place, and they certainly differed in theirmarkings from the so-calledcæmentariaof Mentone. M. Simon had previously informed me that he considered our Mentonese spider distinct from the typicalcæmentaria, and had kindly proposed to give my name to the Mentonese species; and now Mr. Pickard-Cambridge, on the receipt of the specimens collected by me at Montpellier, coincides with M. Simon, and adopts his nomenclature, calling the MentoneseNemesia N. Moggridgii.133

[133]See below, p. 273.

I found but one nest of the cork type at Montpellier, where it was most abundant, and invariably inhabited by the same spider, so that there can be little doubt that this is the celebratedNemesia cæmentariaof Latreille, the nests of which were described by the Abbé Sauvages in 1763.

When living, the pattern on the abdomen is far more distinct and is traced on a paler ground than inN. Moggridgii, and the patterns on the back of the caput, as seen in specimens preserved in spirits, and the relative sizes of the lateral eyes, as well as other details enumerated by Mr. Pickard-Cambridge, afford characters by which they may be known apart; and it is probable that when the males, which are at present unknown, shall be discovered, they will be found to present other distinctive peculiarities. In the present instance we have the reverse of the case described above, in which two very distinct spiders constructed a similar nest, for here both spiders and nests are much alike.

We have yet to learn what are the special advantages which each type of nest affords; but it is plainfrom the fact of the same type being adopted indifferently by both nearly- and most distantly-related spiders, that the form of the nest is governed far more by the conditions which it is contrived to meet, than by the affinity or resemblance of the spiders which construct it.

I have foundN. Moggridgiiat San Remo, Mentone, Cannes, Hyères, and Marseilles, but thus far, I only know of the trueN. cæmentariaat Montpellier.

The latter spider is rather bolder than the former, and I frequently saw it at Montpellier watching at the slightly raised door, with the tips of the claws projecting from the nest, and it rarely failed to resist most vigorously any attempt of mine to force the door open.

During the summer of 1873, I received two specimens of trap-door nests from California. Both of these nests were of the cork type and nearly entire, wanting only a small portion of the base of the tube; they most closely resembled one another and were probably the work of the same spider. For one of these, coming from the San Joaquin valley, between the Calaveras and the Tejon, I have to thank M. J. C. Puls, a Belgian entomologist residing at Ghent; and for the other, containing the spider which had constructed italive within its tube(!), I am indebted to Mr. G. H. Treadwell of San Francisco. The former nest is drawn at fig. A,Plate XV, and the spider134from the latter at fig. B of the same plate.

[134]This spider, which proves to be a new species, is described below (p. 260) asCteniza Californica.

Plate XV.

Mr. Treadwell had carried this spider and its nest, with the block of earth in which it lay, all the way from Visalia, a town about 350 miles south of San Francisco, where he had taken it; the nest and spider travelled safe to London enclosed in an empty cocoatina tin, 41/2inches deep, and 23/4across.

The nest was then entire, for these spiders appear to make singularly shallow tubes; and it might have remained so up to the present day had it not been for the rash curiosity of a chambermaid in the London hotel where Mr. Treadwell was staying, who, smitten with a great desire to learn what the heavy little box which came from the land of gold might contain, proceeded to examine the earth, when the sudden appearance of the spider frightened her so much that box and nest and all were thrown with a crash upon the floor.

Were it not for this unlucky incident I might have seen a complete specimen of this curious nest; but as it was, though the spider miraculously escaped uninjured, the bottom of the nest was pounded into dust, and only the upper portion remained intact.

Both this nest and that sent to me by M. Puls, were of the true cork type, and presented a solid door with a bevelled edge, fitting into the correspondingly bevelled lip of the tube, and shutting flush with the surface of the ground. The lining of the tube was strong and thick, but soft and silky to the touch.

The tube itself in Mr. Treadwell's specimen, when intact, cannot have measured more than 31/2inches in length; and we learn from Dr. Lanzwert, who collected the other specimen, that the average length of these nests does not exceed three inches. Dr.Lanzwert, writing in one of the local papers135of "The Mygales or Ground Spiders," says, "the poisonous black tarantulas, so well known to naturalists, are extremely common in California, but only in places upland, or lowland which are very hot and dry. Their principal haunts are the San Joaquin valley, between the Calaveras and the Tejon. A similar species from the coast is not only smaller than the interior variety, but the colours are much deeper. They both make a curious habitation under the ground, composed of a glutinized, web-worked purse, about three inches long, and which is furnished with a tightly-fitting lid which they can open or shut at pleasure, and which is as cunning a piece of insect architecture as is to be found in nature. These ugly loathsome Californian spiders are often mentioned by thoughtless scribes as carrying no more danger than a common wasp, like the species of Italy, but it is well known that several persons, young and old, have lost their lives in this State from the bite of such tarantulas as are met with in our coast and interior country. Their enemy in the Tulare valley is an immense shining black wasp,136fully an inch long, which will pounce upon them, and after a short battle drag the tarantula along in the most valiant style of heroic conquest. These interior tarantulas are often seen measuring two inches in the spread."

[135]The Evening Bulletinfor Oct. 25, 1866.

[136]This insect was probably not a true wasp, though belonging to an allied family; it may perhaps have been aPepsis, certain species of which genus Mr. Bates informs me he has frequently seen near Santarem on the Amazon, hawking over the ground where the huge trap-door spiders lived, and suddenly pouncing down upon one of these creatures, often many times larger than themselves, when, after paralysing their victim with their sting, they would deliberately saw off the legs before dragging away the bodies!

Mr. Treadwell was quite as much impressed as Dr. Lanzwert with the belief that the bite of these spiders is fatal, but it does not appear that either of these gentlemen have obtained conclusive evidence in support of this allegation.

I have occasionally been bitten by the trap-door spiders in South France, but have never experienced the slightest subsequent inconvenience, nor was there any trace of inflammation or poisoning about the punctures which they made. Mr. Blackwall137has made a very careful set of observations on this head, and has caused some of the largest species of British spiders to bite his finger and wrist until the blood flowed, without the slightest ill effects. He also inoculated himself at the same time with the poisonous secretion of the spider and with that of the wasp; when the latter wound became extremely painful, while the former was not perceptibly aggravated. Mr. Blackwall obtained the spiders' poison by causing a spider to seize a slip of clean glass with its mandibles, when a small quantity of a liquid showing a slightly acid reaction was deposited.

[137]Mr. J. Blackwall,Researches in Zoology, ed. 2, 1873; chapter on "The Poison of the Araneidea," pp. 240-256.

Mr. Treadwell informed me that these Californian trap-door spiders leave their nests in the daytime, and may be seen walking by the roadside, though they are always prepared to hurry back to their nests on the approach of danger.

I received the spider which I have represented atfig. B,Pl. XV, p. 198 (Cteniza Californica), from this gentleman alive, and still within the remaining portion of her nest, on the 6th of July, 1873. She then had the legs and cephalothorax of a brownish-black, and the abdomen of a dull, uniform, dusky chocolate brown, but with an indistinct median line near the anterior end on the upper side, intersected at right angles by a shorter line. Mr. Treadwell said, however, that when captured, this spider was much darker, and of a pitchy black colour. The hairs all over the body were short, but especially so on the abdomen, which had the appearance of cloth or felt.

This creature in many ways recallsCteniza fodiensof Corsica, and in a less degree theCtenizaof Mentone and San Remo.

We find not only the same general form of body, but also the same claws furnished with only one tooth, instead of many as inNemesia, and other distinctive features; and it is interesting to observe in the nest that the more semi-circular form of the door and the wider hinge also connect it rather withCtenizathan withNemesia.

Here, as in all spiders yet observed in cork nests, we find the habit of resisting any attempt to open the door, and many a time when I have wished to raise the lid in order to drop in flies or other food, I have been obliged to desist because the bending blade of my penknife showed that I should injure the nest if I used greater force.

No doubt the shallowness of the nest is an advantage to its occupant in one way—namely, that it enables the spider to start up at the shortest notice, and cling on to the door.

It is curious to find that, far as California is removed from the Riviera, the same habits of construction and self-defence are common to the spiders of both countries, and that the bond of kinship sets time and space at defiance.

I kept this spider all through the summer and early autumn at Richmond (Surrey), sprinkling the nest from time to time with water, and constantly supplying its inhabitant with flies, wood-lice, grasshoppers, earwigs, and other similar dainties. She did not, however, seem eager for food, and the insects provided for her, and actually placed within the nest, were often turned out again almost untouched.

When I placed living insects, such as grasshoppers, for example, within the nest over-night, she would often allow them to remain there unharmed, so that I found them ready to escape on opening the door the following morning.

I never saw her leave the nest of her own free will, and when I made her come out and set her to run in the garden, she began at once to seek for a place to hide in, hobbling along in an ungainly way and at a slow pace.

She must, however, have left the nest on more than one occasion, unseen by me, for she deposited several clusters of eggs at various times upon the under-surface of the gauze net which was fastened over the mouth of the box in which she was imprisoned.

The first of these groups of eggs was laid during the night between the 12th and 13th of July, and formed a raspberry-shaped cluster attached to the gauze.

I have represented this cluster of the natural size at fig. B, 6, and magnified at fig. B, 7, onPlate XV,only in an inverted position, for they really hung downwards from the under side of the net.

These eggs were greyish white or pale brown, and varied in shape from globose to oblong.

All were very small, the largest only measuring1/2line in its greatest length, but it is doubtful whether any of these eggs were fertile, and, though they appeared full and plump, many presented an irregular and fissured surface.

A fortnight later (July 27) another cluster of eggs was laid, and this time between the hours of five and eightP.M.When the lamp was brought in at the latter hour, I perceived what I took to be a drop of water hanging from the gauze cover above and rather in front of the spider's door, the very position occupied by the cluster of eggs previously described. On closer inspection this proved to be a drop of a pellucid colourless liquid, in which some thirty eggs floated. One egg was laid on the gauze at some distance from the main group, and several were also attached to the inside of the tin box.

At midnight I found that the drop had coagulated and contracted, and by the following morning the mass was quite dry and resembled the former group, only that it was not quite so convex.

Some of the eggs forming this cluster were much larger than any in the preceding one, and one measured as much as a line in length by half a line in breadth. This group is shown magnified at fig. B, 8,Plate XV, and some of the separate eggs more highly magnified at fig. B, 9.

Between this date and the end of November when the spider died, eggs were laid on seven distinct occasions—viz.,on July 31, August 11, 15, 31 (when I again found the eggs floating in a drop of liquid, having been deposited on the gauze between two and half-past four o'clock in the afternoon); September 9 (23 eggs laid on the earth near the entrance to the nest); September 19 (about 30 eggs on the gauze), and November 4 (about 30 eggs on the gauze).

Thus, between July 13 and November 4, this spider laid nine clusters of eggs, all but one of which were placed on the same part of the gauze cover, above and a little in front of the door, and the total number of eggs deposited cannot have been less than 250. It is difficult to understand why she should have laid these eggs outside the nest, unless indeed she knew them to be sterile, and so treated them as refuse. I can scarcely believe that such a procedure is in accordance with the ordinary habits of these spiders; for, if the eggs and young are habitually exposed, then the perfect concealment of the nest would lose one of its most important uses. When we remember that there are minute hymenopterous insects which lay their eggs within the eggs of the spiders, we can see how important it may be that the entrance to a nest, which is at once nursery and stronghold, should be closed by a well-fitting door, and one which may exclude, not only the larger and more powerful enemies of the full-grown spiders, but also the tiny and almost imperceptible assailants of the eggs and young.

This Californian spider was always careful to eject from the nest the remains of insects with which I had supplied her, and, as she did so deliberately and by day as well as by night, I had frequent opportunitiesof watching her. Sometimes, if not alarmed by any sudden movement, she would remain for one or two minutes at the mouth of the nest with the door partly raised, and I was glad to seize these opportunities for making some experiments, with a view to learning whether she would prove as sensitive to sound as she did to other vibrations and to the sight of moving objects.

Placing myself so that the partly-opened door screened me from her view, I was able to approach close to the nest without causing her alarm, and to make different sounds and noises at distances varying from three to fourteen inches.

In no case, however, did she pay the slightest attention; and neither shrill and sudden whistling, deep chest and buzzing sounds, an octave of piercing notes struck upon brass bells, my best imitation of the whirring of the fern owl, or finally, the angry hum of a large humble-bee imprisoned in a paper box, and held within three inches of the door of the nest, appeared to produce any kind of effect. This surprised me, I confess, for, though I am aware that no auditory apparatus has as yet been discovered in spiders, I can scarcely believe that they stand at so great a disadvantage as creatures would seem to do which lack the power of hearing.

These experiments must not, however, be taken for more than they are worth; and the results obtained may have been due rather to apathy in the individual spider than to a want of perception in the race generally. In any case they suggest the need of further experiment and observation in this direction.

In October I carried this Californian spider out with me to Mentone, and she lived there and appeared plump and well until the end of the following month, when she suddenly died, having laid one more group of eggs in the interval. On examination, I found a dark brown spot on one side of the abdomen, and this, I think, probably indicates that her death was caused by some insect of the ichneumon family, which had laid its eggs within the spider's body, after having stabbed it at the place indicated by the discolouration.

Not very long before this melancholy event occurred, I had put the spider to some inconvenience in order to secure her portrait from life, to effect which I took her from her nest and placed her in a deep china saucer.

She exhibited the strongest dislike to exposure, and sought to hide herself even under a fold of blotting-paper which lay in the saucer with her. I also noted that she appeared quite incapable of walking up the sides of the saucer, and it would therefore seem that she was destitute of the viscid hairs which enable some spiders to traverse glazed and polished surfaces.

Seeing this anxiety on the part of the spider for concealment, it came into my mind that, perhaps, if she were placed on the surface of a pot full of garden mould she might excavate a tunnel in order to hide herself from view. This I accordingly did in the evening of November 15, and on the following morning I was delighted to find that she had commenced to dig and was still at work.

In little more than an hour's time the hollow hadbecome about the size of half a walnut, and resembled in its nearly semi-circular outline and size the surface of the door of her own nest. I was greatly pleased to be able to watch the creature at the work of excavation, a sight which I believe no naturalist has ever had before.

The legs took no part in the digging, and the palpi were but little used, the mandibles and their fangs being the implements chiefly employed. As soon as a little earth had been loosened and gathered up, the spider walked up to the edge of her excavation and deposited there her mouthful of particles of earth, separating and working the mandibles up and down in the effort to part with the pellet, which had been carried between the fangs and the mouth-organs. Each pellet was very small, and the operation appeared to be excessively tedious and laborious. I had expected to see the spider scrape out large quantities of earth at a time, and either drag it backwards or kick it out behind her as a terrier does when working at a rabbit-burrow; but no, every little pellet removed was carried forwards, and deposited separately on the "tip."

On the two following days, the 17th and 18th November, the spider remained almost inactive, and brooded over the cavity she had made, and which still remained too shallow to conceal or even contain her. At 4P.M.on the latter day I made a hole for her in the earth, and, after some indecision, she took possession of it. Next day, however, finding that she remained motionless in the hole which I had made, and displayed no apparent intention of either liningit with silk or furnishing it with a door, I replaced her in her own nest.

Within a few days after this date I found her dead at the bottom of her tube, and at first I was inclined to fear that the treatment to which she had lately been subjected might have caused her end. When, however, I detected the brown spot on the side of the abdomen, described above, and which so strongly recalled the marks frequently observable in caterpillars attacked by ichneumons, I came to the conclusion that she had really died from the internal injuries caused by the gnawing of these cruel parasites; and that the eggs, laid long before by one of these insects, had been hatched within her body and developed into larvæ, which, living upon her tissues, had at length destroyed some vital part. It is surprising that a creature, carrying within itself such a fatal brood, should not only live, but be capable of undergoing such adventures and misadventures as this travelled spider endured with seeming indifference; but similar facts are familiar to all those who have attended to the rearing of caterpillars, and the frequent disappointment caused by the death of apparently sound specimens which have been attacked in this way is but too well known.

It would appear thatCteniza Californicais peculiarly amenable to captivity, and indeed to captivity of the strictest kind.

My specimen lived during all the time she was in my possession in a cocoatina tin, a cylindrical box 41/2in. deep and 23/4in. in diameter, which always stood among the books and papers on my writing-table.It is probable that those trap-door spiders which inhabit nests with short tubes, and which therefore can be transported nest and all, would be less disconcerted by imprisonment than is the case with other kinds living at the bottom of a long burrow which it is almost impossible to carry away entire. This is borne out by what has been related (Ants and Spiders, p. 122) of the habits ofCteniza ionicain captivity, which not only endured to have its nest set upside down in a flower-pot, but actually furnished the inverted base of the tube with a door appropriate to its new position.

Canon Tristram (the well-known author and naturalist) was so kind as to send me two trap-door nests from Palestine for inspection; these were small cork nests, the doors of which resembled those of the MentoneseCteniza(Ct. Moggridgii), but the tubes were exceedingly short, and that of the more perfect specimen, as I gather from Canon Tristram, measured only two inches and an eighth in length when entire.

The nests ofCteniza ionicaare but little longer, and that of the MentoneseCteniza, though never so shallow as these, are far less deep than those ofNemesia cæmentaria, the builder of the typical cork nest.

And now we will leave the nests of the cork type and their inhabitants, and turn to the more intricate group of nests belonging to the wafer type. Following the order indicated in the diagrams, we will begin with the simplest type of all, fig. C, and afterwards take the remaining types one after the other, advancing until we reach the most complex type, G. The nest represented diagrammatically at fig. C, inPlate XIV, is shown of the natural size inPlate XVI., with the spider (Nemesia Simoni, Camb.) which constructs it (fig. A 1).

Plate XVI.

It belongs to the single-door unbranched wafer type, of which one example has already been described in the West Indian nest (seeAnts and Spiders, p. 79, fig. B in woodcut); for, though this latter has a shorter tube and a much stouter silk lining than is the case with its European representative, there does not appear to be sufficient difference to justify their separation as distinct types.

This, which is the simplest known form of trap-door nest, is quite new to Europe, and the spider inhabiting it proves also to be one hitherto undescribed; it has received from Mr. Pickard-Cambridge, the name ofNemesia Simoni,138being so called in honour of M. E. Simon, the well-known arachnologist.

[138]Mr. Pickard-Cambridge describesN. Simoniat p. 297 below. This species is remarkably well characterized, an assertion rarely to be made in the case of thoseNemesiasof which, as in the present instance, the female only is known. The elevated, rounded, and glabrous caput at once distinguishes it, not to speak of other peculiarities. Mr. Pickard-Cambridge alludes to the presence, in the specimens forwarded to him in spirits, of two singular indentations on either side of the caput (fig. A 3,Plate XVI). I did not observe this when these spiders were alive, but I remember that the caput of one of these spiders which had been injured in capture contracted and expanded spasmodically, presenting a painful resemblance to laboured breathing. I have not observed this in other spiders.

During last May (1874) we spent a few days at Bordeaux on our homeward route. While there my sister was fortunate enough to discover a single nest of this type when we were out together on a spider-hunt near the little village of Lormont, which is situated on the opposite bank of the river to that onwhich the city stands. We subsequently found these nests in tolerable abundance in a deep shady lane near a restaurant called Mon Répos, on the same side of the river, but rather farther up.

Here the hedge banks were high, and the soil was composed of a fine even-grained loam of great depth, which permitted the spiders to carry their tubes very far down, some of them attaining a length of 15 inches.

This made it very difficult to follow them throughout their whole course and so to assure oneself of the real structure of the nests, but I succeeded in doing this in twelve instances.

In every one of these I found the tube cylindrical and unbranched throughout, and destitute of any trace of a lower door.

This deficiency alone distinguishes the present type from that to which the nest ofNemesia Eleanorabelongs; the latter being of thedouble-doorand the former of thesingle-door, unbranched wafer type.

But perhaps it may be asked whether it is safe to assume that because twelve examples of this nest were found to correspond in structure, and were tenanted by the same occupant, that therefore all the Bordeaux nests in which this particular spider might be found would present similar peculiarities.

I greatly hope that other naturalists will put this question to the test of actual investigation on the spot, but I do not hesitate to assert my conviction that this will prove to be the case.

The result of my experience among the nests of the otherNemesias, scores of which I have carefully examined in many widely separated localities, showsthat a given spider is invariably associated with a fixed type of nest.

Thus, Cannes is from fifty to sixty miles distant from San Remo, but the nests ofN. cæmentaria,N. Manderstjernæ, andN. Eleanorashow precisely the same characteristics in either place.

Moreover, the twelve nests referred to were not all taken from one restricted locality at Bordeaux, but were found presenting the same characteristics and occupied by the same spider in three distinct habitats, distant some miles from one another. In two nests several young spiders were found with the mother, and, in one case where the family consisted of twenty-three young ones, I observed that they were not all equally small, and some had nearly attained one-third of their full size.

This agreed with the fact that no very small nests were observed, and it seems probable that the young are not turned out of their nursery quite so early as some of their relations are at Mentone. This, however, varies perhaps in accordance with changes of climate and local conditions.

We failed to detect any other type of nest at Bordeaux than the one described above: and even the cork nests, which we had shortly before seen in such abundance at Montpellier, were apparently absent.

Bordeaux is by far the north-westernmost point in Europe139at which any spider constructing a true trap-door nest has as yet been discovered; and the fact that they exist in a climate so different fromthat of the Riviera and of the whole Mediterranean region, leads me to hope that their range may in reality be much more widely extended than has hitherto been supposed to be the case.

[139]Cork nests have however been mentioned as occurring in the neighbourhood of Lyons, which lies in nearly the same parallel of latitude with Bordeaux.

A glance at the vegetation of this district will suffice to show how little there is that betokens either a warm or dry winter climate; for here the myrtles, oranges and olives are left far behind, and in their place we see tall hedgerow elms, and poplars bearing mistletoe on their branches.

Here therefore we are met by the question, How do these Bordeaux spiders contrive to live under conditions so different from those to which their relations on the Riviera have adapted themselves? How do they bear the cold and damp of the long winter, and how is it that one frail upper door suffices to protect their nest from molestation?

The thick coating of dead leaves, which covered the banks even when we found them, no doubt aids largely in their concealment, and the colder climate probably diminishes the number of their enemies, but their means of subsistence are most likely also less abundant and their period of active life shorter.

The next type we have to consider is a totally new one, and may be distinguished as thesingle-door branched wafer nest. I detected this nest at Montpellier but a few days before the visit to Bordeaux alluded to above.

Circumstances unfortunately prevented me from following up my discovery as closely as I could have wished, and it appears moreover that this nest is far less common at Montpellier than the typical cork nest (Nemesia cæmentaria).

Plate XVII.

I hope therefore that other naturalists will make further investigations, and especially that they will endeavour to secure the male.

I obtained twelve spiders and thoroughly followed the course of ten nests; I opened thirteen more nests, but failed to trace their structure satisfactorily.

The upper part of this nest is shown of the natural size inPlate XVIIwith the spider (Nemesia suffusa, Camb.140) which constructs it. This is again a wafer nest without any lower door, and this absence of a lower door alone distinguishes it as a type from the branched nest represented at F in the diagram, just as the same deficiency separated the Bordeaux type from that at fig. E.

[140]We have again in this instance an exemplification of the rule that a new type of nest indicates the presence of a new spider, and hitherto, this rule has proved without exception. Mr. Pickard-Cambridge's description ofN. suffusawill be found at p. 295, below. Its slender proportions, cylindrico-ovate abdomen, marked with narrow linear chevrons, and caput without, or almost without, any median line or marking, form some of its more striking characteristics.

In this new single-door branched type, the branch makes a more or less acute angle with the main tube, and reaches the surface of the ground, but is there closed by a layer of particles of earth slightly bound together with silk, forming an immovable cover or thatch. This cover constitutes, however, but a slight obstruction and could easily be torn away by the spider if she needed to use this passage as a way of escape.

These nests were tolerably plentiful at a place called Les Mourines, a short distance from Montpellier, where they were mixed with cork nests in the steep hedge banks. The nests were from 8 to 10 inches deep, and, as in all the trap-door nests which Ihave examined, were tenanted by the female alone. It seems strange that this spider, building as she does a nest apparently but poorly furnished either for concealment or defence, should be able to enter into competition withN. cæmentaria, whose solid, closely-fitting door appears so perfectly contrived for both. It will probably be found, however, when we are better acquainted with their respective ways of life, that they are really more nearly on a footing than they seem to be at first sight. I detected the remains of ants and the elytra of a beetle in one of these branched single-door nests. Now these may also be found in cork nests, so thatNemesia suffusaevidently competes withcæmentariafor its food, and this is of course the main cause of contention between all living creatures.

It is possible, that, if we knew all the uses to which the branch is put by the spider which constructs it, we should find that the advantages derived in the way of security from the existence of this second passage, counterbalance those possessed by the cork nest, which, though so perfectly closed, has only the one tube, and no other possible way of escape.

It may perhaps be no more than a coincidence, but we can scarcely avoid commenting upon the fact, that, just as this Montpellier wafer nest is simpler in construction than any found along the Riviera, so in like manner is the Bordeaux nest simpler than that of Montpellier. It thus becomes tempting to ask whether, in the case of these wafer nests, we shall not discover that the colder and damper climates are the homes of the builders of the simpler types, while the warmer and drier ones, where more food, moreenemies and more competitors are found, are reserved for the architects of the more complicated nests.

Doubtless naturalists will soon discover wafer nests on the slopes of the Pyrenees, as for example at Pau and other winter stations in South-western France; and perhaps the coast of the Bay of Biscay may also yield specimens, even to the north of Bordeaux. If so, this curious speculation as to whether there is any relation between simplicity of structure and warmth of climate, will be put on its trial.

About the very time when I was engaged in digging out these new wafer nests at Montpellier, the celebrated arachnologist, Dr. L. Koch of Nuremberg, had just published141an account and figure of a very remarkable nest which he had received from Australia, and which, though differing both in form and proportions from the Montpellier nest, may nevertheless perhaps be referred to the present single-door branched wafer type.

[141]Dr. L. Koch,Arachniden Australiens, 10te. Lieferuug, Nurnberg, 1874, tab. xxxvii. fig. 3, p. 484.

This Australian nest, the exact habitat of which is not mentioned, is constructed by a spider now described for the first time under the name ofIdioctis helva. The nest has a wafer-door about the size of a sixpence, closing a vertical tube less than half an inch long, which meets and opens into a horizontal tube about three inches in length, and forms with it what may be roughly likened to the figure of a capital T inverted, thus, ┹.

The upstroke of the T is however, very short, and one of the arms is longer than the other, and curved downwards at its extremity. This is, as far as I know, the first recorded example of a wafer-nest from theAntipodes, and it may be regarded as one of the first fruits of a harvest which lies ready for the reaping of any naturalist resident in those parts. Hitherto the only nests which I have seen or heard of from Australia were of the cork type (Ants and Spiders, p. 132).

Next in order to the single-door branched wafer comes thedouble-door unbranched wafertype, which is the simplest of all the nests possessing two doors. This habitation, the work ofN. Eleanora, has been already described (Ants and Spiders, p. 106), and I have not much to add to the account there given.

Perhaps some of my readers may remember that, while I was actually engaged on the proofs ofAnts and SpidersI had one of theseEleanoraspiders in captivity, and that I gave an account (p. 148) of her behaviour up to the latest moment possible. She had been captured on October 23, 1872, and placed, together with five young ones found with her in the nest, on the surface of some earth in a medium-sized flower-pot covered over with gauze. The young ones soon made nests for themselves in the earth, each furnished with its little door, but the mother roamed about on the surface of the soil, and it was not until she had been twenty-one days in captivity that she commenced spinning a silk cell.

This cell in twelve days' time presented the form of a rude figure of 8, and had an aperture at either end; it was just large enough to contain the spider when the legs were extended; its upper surface was attached to the gauze covering of the pot, and its lower to the earth. It was at this stage that the record was broken off, and I will now relate the remainder of the history.

Four days before the cell was commenced, the spider had covered the under surface of the gauze with a semi-transparent film of a substance resembling varnish, which formed a band about three inches long by half an inch wide, close to where the rim of the flower-pot threw the most shade. It was at one extremity of this band that the silk-cell was formed, but it is important to note that this band of varnish was longer than the cell, which only measured an inch and a quarter from end to end, for we shall see that the layer of varnish was apparently laid with a view to further operations.

In four days after the completion of the cell its form was modified, and, during the next ten days (up to December 21st), the spider gradually thickened the walls, and made the form of the cell more and more cylindrical, sometimes closing and at other times opening the extremities.

Between December 14th and 25th, she lengthened out the cell by spinning a cylindrical silk tube in prolongation of one end, and this tube followed the course of the band of varnish, the whole measuring three-and-a-half inches in length by about half an inch in diameter.

It would appear therefore from the correspondence in length between the band of varnish and this silk tube, that she had contemplated the construction of the latter when she first commenced her work on November 3rd.

On January 19th the silk tube parted from the gauze, leaving only the enlarged end which formed the cell still adhering to it. On the following day I observed the very curious factthat when I sprinkled the nest with water, as it was my custom to do every morning, the tube, which had become somewhat flaccid since it had lost its attachment to the gauze, gradually recovered its perfect shape. This was repeated for eleven days, until on the morning of the twelfth day (January 31st), finding the tube completely collapsed, instead of merely sprinkling water over it, I drew a large camel-hair brush loaded with water along its whole length, when the tube started up, and almost instantaneously regained its cylindrical form.

This morning the spider had left her cell, and was roaming about the pot when I wetted the tube, thus proving that she was in no way concerned with its movements, which were no doubt due to hygrometric action.

Between this time and February 25th, I constantly restored the tube to its shape by wetting it in the way above described, but on this day it remained very flaccid, and only expanded partially. For some days previous to this date, the spider had left the tube when it collapsed, and only returned to it again when it had resumed its shape. On the following day I found the entire silk tube and the cell again collapsed and lying flat upon the ground, and this time water failed to produce its previous effect.

The spider then became very restless and excited, and I observed that the door of one of the little nests constructed by one of her five offspring which had been imprisoned in the same pot with her, had been torn off, and thrown on one side, and there could be little doubt but that the mother had been guilty of this very un-maternal action. By the evening she hadpulled up her collapsed tube from its attachment to the earth, and had coiled it in a confused heap. Seeing this, and fearing that, in her distress and excitement, she might do further damage to the young spiders, which had up to that time thriven well, I made a cylindrical hole for her in the earth, supposing that she would at once take possession of it. On the following morning, however, the mother spider had advanced some way in building another figure-of-8 cell, rising the shrivelled silk of her previous dwelling as a foundation.

In twenty-four hours this second cell was complete, and closely resembled the former one, save that the smaller end of the 8 was turned in the opposite direction, but, on examining it, I found to my surprise that it was empty! The spider had taken possession of the hole I had made for her, which she had at first refused to notice, and was busily employed in lining it with silk and furnishing it with a covering composed of silk with earth and fragments of moss woven into the surface. By mid-day the aperture was completely closed, but there was no moveable door. From this time (February 28) up to April 12, the spider lived in this hole, which she eventually furnished with a distinct wafer-door, and, as I found on opening the nest, with a typical lower door also. This latter was not neatly made, but still it possessed all features the essential which characterize these lower doors in the nests ofN. Eleanora.

So this captiveNemesia Eleanoralived in a flower-pot in my bedroom for more than five months and a half, during which time she absolutely refused to burrow or to attempt any kind of excavation, butpassed the greater part of that period on the surface of the earth in a silk tube ending in an oblong enlargement, utterly unlike her normal habitation. Finally, when I had done the digging for her, she furnished the cylindrical hole I had bored in the earth with a silk lining, and made it secure with her own two typical doors.

The figure-of-8 cell which she constructed at first, and subsequently modified until it became the oblong enlargement of the tube alluded to above, was totally unlike any form of trap-door spider's nest known to me; but in its ultimate shape (which resembled that of the glass part of a thermometer with an oblong bulb, save that it was curved and not straight), I think we may trace some resemblance to the silk tube which is made byAtypus, and of which a figure is given at A,Plate XIII, p. 183; the mouth of the tube made by my captive was, however, open. It is curious, also, when we recall this resemblance, to note that Mr. Brown has recorded, in his observations alluded to above (p. 185), that the tube of one of the nests ofAtypus, which he brought home in a collapsed state, showed a somewhat similar tendency to become distended. For, on opening the box in which they had been carried, he perceived a movement throughout the tube as if it were becoming inflated, and though this inflation appeared to subside shortly after, yet the following morning the tube had recovered its cylindrical shape. I am tempted to believe, though this is mere conjecture, that the box in which these tubes were put contained moisture, and that their apparent inflation was due to the same hygrometric actionwhich, was displayed in the tube ofN. Eleanora. I regretted that I was unable to continue my observations on this captive spider, as it would have been interesting to know how long she would have lived contentedly and in good health under the conditions described above, but I left Mentone at the end of April, and was unable to take her alive with me to England. When removed from her nest in the pot on April 12, she appeared in perfect condition, and I placed her in a hole which I made for her among some stones in a garden at the back of the house, hoping to find her again on my return to Mentone in the autumn; this hope was, however, not destined to be realized.

I shall, however, have occasion to speak again of the young captives of this species (N. Eleanora), in the concluding remarks which will follow these detailed accounts of the nests and their occupants, when the behaviour of captive trap-door spiders generally will be treated of.

The next type of trap-door nest is one to which I have found it difficult to assign a descriptive name, and I am compelled for the present to speak of it as theHyères double-door branched wafernest.

One of its most distinctive features is found in the shape of the lower door, fig. F 1,Plate XIV, and figs. A 1, A 2,Plate XVIII., which may be said to be double, presenting two crowns, one of which fits into the main tube and the other into the branch, but I could not see my way to employing this character in naming the type. The nest is, however, quite distinct from all the others, and is inhabited by a new species oftrap-door spider (N. congener, Camb.142). The characteristic portions of this nest are shown inPlate XVIII, and fig. A 3, in the same Plate, represents its occupant.

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