TRAP-DOOR SPIDER^ 1 . 217: 



Again, Mr. F. Pollock 1 relates of the young of Epeira aurelia, 

 which he observed in Madeira, that when seven weeks old they 

 made a web the size of a penny, and that these nets have the 

 same beautiful symmetry as thosa of the full-grown spider. 



And, speaking of trap-door spiders, Moggridge says, 



I cannot help thinking that these very small nests, built as 

 they are by minute spiders probably not very long hatched 

 from the egg, must rank among the most marvellous structures 

 of this kind with which we are acquainted. That so voung 

 and weak a creature should be able to excavate a tube in the 

 earth many times its own length, and know how to make a 

 perfect miniature of the nest of its parents, seems to be a fact 

 which has scarcely a parallel in nature. 2 



Regarding the steps whereby the instinct of building 

 trap -doors probably arose, Biichner quotes Moggridge 

 thus : 



To show, lastly, how various are the transitional forms and 

 gradations so important in deciding upon the gradual origin of 

 the forms of nests, Moggridge also alludes to the similar build- 

 ings made by other genera of spiders. Lyeosa Narbonensis, a 

 spider of Southern France much resembling the Apuleian 

 tarantula, and belonging to the family of the wolf spiders, 

 makes cylindrical holes in the earth, about one inch wide and 

 three or four inches deep, in a perpendicular direction ; when 

 they have attained this depth they run further horizontally, 

 and end in a three cornered room, from one to two inches broad, 

 the floor of which is covered with the remnants of dead in- 

 sects. The whole nest is lined within with a thick silken 

 material, and has at its opening closed by no door an above- 

 ground chimney-shaped extension, made of leaves, needles, 

 moss, wood, (fee., woven together with spider threads. These 

 chimneys show various differences in their manner of building, 

 and are intended chiefly, according to Moggridge, to prevent 

 the sand blown about by the violent sea- winds from penetrating 

 into the nests. During winter the opening is wholly and con- 

 tinuously woven over, and it is very well possible, or probable, 

 that the process of reopening such a warm covering in the spring, 



1 ' The History and Habits of Epeira aurelia,? in Annals and Mag. of 

 Nat. Hist, for June 1865. 



2 Harvesting Ants and Trap-dear Spiders, p. 126. This admirable 

 work, with its appendix, contains a very full account of the whole 

 economy of the interesting animals with which it is concerned. 



