1887.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 381 



service. Then the two front feet are brought into phiy to gather up 

 the loose pellets of soil and scrape them into a ball. The first and 





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y 





'^j^r^ 



?:;^?Sslji 



Fil;. 4. Tarantula digging up and gallieiing a hall of eaith to carry away, 



second pairs of legs now close up around and under the balled mass, 

 thus compressing it inside the mandibles. (Fig. 4.) When the 

 pellets have thus been gathered and squeezed into a mass, they are held 

 within the extended mandibles, tiie pali)s in the meantime girdling 



them at the side and 

 beneath, and so are 

 carried away from 

 the burrow to the 

 dumping ground. 

 (Fig. 5.) 



I never observed 

 any scratching and 

 scraping the dirt 



Fig. 5. Mode of carrying excavated soil. backward in the 



fashion of a dog digging in a rabbit burrow, which is also the action 

 of ants, bees and wasps when excavating the earth. Always the 

 pellets were deliberately loosened as I have indicated, squeezed to- 

 gether into a ball and carried off. During the act of digging, and 

 indeed quite habitually during all actions such as eating etc., the 



