76 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



without details, confirms all that I had there suggested, and shows that the ^ 

 enemy which the Trapdoor spider is most concerned to evade belongs to 

 the same remarkable family, if it be not identical with Pepsis formosa. 



Mr. Titus adds that the moss and lichens placed by the Trapdoor spider 

 on the outside of its door will keep green through the wet season, and dies 

 when the dry time of the year comes. He once saw a nest made 

 Mimicry. .^^ ^ ^^^^^-^ ^^ beautiful green moss, the door of which was com- 

 pletely covered by the plant. The nest was discovered by the circumstances 

 that the moss upon the lid was not quite so large as the surrounding moss, 

 and it was only by this that the nest could have been detected. The fact 

 showed that the moss had grown since the preparation of the lid, and this 

 of course could only have been by the active or permissive agency of the 

 spider architect. 



Some observations made by Miss Thompson upon the maternal habits 

 of a family of Trapdoor spiders are interesting. The young spiders have 

 a pinkish white color when first hatched. The hatcliing occupied 

 s^^^ . a period of about three weeks. A little later the color of the 

 ^^ ^^^' spiderlings is described as a silvery amber touched with pink. 

 They remained in the nest with the mother, and at times perched upon 

 her body and legs, where they looked like shining pink pearls against the 

 glossy black. This is the custom of the young of all Citigrades, and, so 

 far as is known, of Tunnelweavers. 



Of the cocooning habit of this species Mr. Titus says that the female 

 lays her eggs upon the inside of her nest, about three inches above the 

 bottom thereof. The eggs are fastened to the sides of the bur- 

 Cocoon. ^_^^ ^^.^-j^ glossy threads. It is thus seen that the cocooning 

 habit of Cteniza Californica is precisely like that of the Trapdoor spiders 

 of Venezuela, as described by Mr. Eugene Simon. ^ 



' A copy of his figure showing the position of the cocoon within the nest will be found 

 in Vol. II. of this work, page 140, Fig. 172, the burrow of Psalistops melanophygia. 



