1890] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 07 



castle. In the construction of th- tube damp eartli facilitate* 

 working materially, but being c<|ual to the occasion the spider 

 can dig a tube in dry sand, requiring extra effort and a 

 good deal of ingenuity. The proce** is so simple, however. 

 when compared with the complicated mechanism used by one 

 contemplating- sinking such a shaft on a large scale that it is 

 worthy of special note. In setting out to make the tube she 

 proceeds with some slight variation in the following wa\ : 

 Standing on tiptoe the spider moves her abdomen around 

 almost in a circle between her legs, touching the ground here 

 and there with the spinnerettes at the end of the l>ody. The 

 silk pouring out catches last in the soil, and in a moment an 

 adherent round Mooring of altout ten millimeters across is 

 formed. Then she turns about, digging up the little silk mat 

 entangled with sand, and in a twinkling has made it into a 

 parcel, which is laid to one side. Again she spins out silk over 

 the same spot and dexterously lifts up the mass, lays the pel- 

 let beside the preceding, until by repetitions she has tempo- 

 rarily encircled the newly-made pit with her internal diggings. 

 At times she stands head down in the hole and pats down 

 the new-formed mouth with her inverted abdomen. Within 

 an hour she is down the depth of her body and the hole exca- 

 vated sufficiently large to turn around in, but now each parcel 

 after being made is snapped from her mandibles with a sudden 

 motion of the palpi when up to the entrance. As she pro- 

 gresses the tube is lined \\ith silk, often going over the surface 

 to prevent any caving in of the earl It. Xow we lind her tak- 

 ing a well-earned rest, and not until darkness is fully estab- 

 lished does she commence her castle. In vivarium 1 watched 

 spiders b\ artificial light under conditions quite natural. 

 Coming out of her tube I saw her grasp a prickly sphere of 

 burgras.x. and taking it to the burrow she adjusted it to the 

 border of the opening. In a few moments *he gathered two 

 more of the burs, one at a time placing them to form a partial 

 border; the intervening Spaces bel \\een them \\ere tilled with 

 sand pellets, which she made and brought up from the inside 

 of the tube. Taking this to be the foundation of her future 

 castle, I took the opportunity of tr\ing an experiment, that 

 is, of furnishing material. The ground, quite bare near her 

 tube, was strewn with a selection of short pieces of bleached 



