1887.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 379 



out or rearranging the spinning tubes and surrounding spines; in 

 other words, the adjustment of the spinning machinery. 



4. Character of the Nest and mode of burrowing. The opinion 

 prevails largely that the tarantula, Mygale Hentzii, makes a trap- 

 door nest, and it has not been an uncommon thing for me to meet 

 tourists who had purchased in California specimens of trap-door 

 nests, and at the same time a specimen of the large tarantula which 

 the sellers claimed had made it.^ 



I am satisfied by my long continued observations of these crea- 

 tures in confinement, as well as by authentic reports from various 

 persons, that they make no trap-door, and that their only nest is a 

 burrow in the ground. Dr. J. Rowland, of Media, Pa., who has 

 several times visited Los Angelos, informs me that the tarantula is 

 there found in holes covered with a slight web. A little mound of 

 fresh earth is thrown up around the surface edge of the hole which 

 is merely covered over by a delicate web. There is no trap-door 

 to this den, which is a burrow about an inch and a quarter in diam- 

 eter extending downward from ten to twenty inches in depth. The 

 boys bring the spiders up by pouring water down the holes. The 

 great creatures burst out of the open gate, spread their long legs and 

 hurry away, and are then easily captured. According to Mr. G. 

 W. Holstein who has frequently observed them in Texas they live 

 in holes about one and an eighth inch in diameter which appear to 

 have a white silky lining and are generally found in sandy soil. 

 One burrow dug up by his brother was ten inches deep; was desti- 

 tute of a lining, but at the bottom there appeared some sort of a 

 nest. When disturbed the creatures run into holes formed by the 

 weathering out of fossils &c. At Los Angelos the animals are 

 found at times occupying gopher holes. 



1 Professor Spencer F. Baird, the late distinguished and lamented Secretary of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, entertained this opinion, and when I once questioned 

 ii, thought he had specimens in the museum at Washington that would prove it. 

 He subsequently wrote me : "I did not find in any of the California nests any 

 remains of spiders at all but we have two from Jamaica which still have large 

 hairy spiders in them. These nests are mucli more slender than those from Call- 

 foinia. I shall be pleased to show them to you whenever you visit Washingt^on, 

 I cannot send them as they are too fragde for transmission." I have not yet had 

 the opportunity of examining these specimens, but think that they will be found to 

 belong to the genus Nemesia or Cteniza, and are not true tarantulas. 



