OEKERAL (,'OCOOM\(i HATUT8 ()]•' SI'IDICKS. 



139 



That accomplished French arachnologist, M. Eugene Simon, has recently 

 added largely to our knowledge of this interesting tribe. A visit to South 

 America enabled him to make personal studies of trapdoor nests, 

 Trapdoor '"^^^ these have happily found expression in admirably drawn 

 Spiders, plates, some of whose figures I have ventured to redraw for these 

 pages. Rhytidicolus structor is a common species in Venezuela, 

 particularly ujion the slopes of compact and sandy ground. Its burrow is 

 the most complex that Simon observed. It is composed of three succes.sive 

 spacious cliambers, communicating one with anotlier b}' straiglit openings, 

 wliicli close by a hinged door. 



The first chamber is largely dilated in the form of a pear, but quite 

 contracted at the two extremities. (See Fig. 170.) The second chamber is 

 more or less cylindrical, and termi- 

 nates in a cul de sac. Tlie third 

 cliamber communicates with the sec- 

 ond, not b_y its extremity, but upon 

 the side, which is dilated and oval, 

 like the first, and rounded at the bot- 

 tom. The walls of the entire burrow 

 ai-e perfectly Imilt, very smootli, and 

 draped with a wliite tissue, light, 

 transjiarent, and adhering. The three 

 doors are almost alike. They are 

 thick, cut like a stopi)le uj)on the edge, 

 and penetrate within the opening, 

 which is itself slightly widened and a 

 little prolonged beyond the surface. 

 They are semicircular, and cut in a 

 straight line on the side of the hinge. 

 Their superior faces are rough, like 

 the adjoining soil, even with the in- 

 side doors; sometimes at an external 

 opening the doors are a little swollen, 

 and very unequal, but always slightly concave on the internal doors. The 

 internal faces of the doors are convex, and have a silk drapery like that 

 of the walls. On the edge of the bevel are small holes for the attachment 

 of the claws when the traj) is to be held down, and these are more distinct 

 on the entrance door. This swings naturally from within to the out- 

 side. The second door opens, on the contrary, from the outside inwardly 

 in such manner that in the first chamber the two doors show the inter- 

 nal faces equally smootli. The arrangement of these doors is shown in 

 the figure. 



The female deposits her eggs in the first chamber; they arc not agglu- 

 tinated, and are enveloped in a cocoon of white, opaijue tissue, nuich longer 



Fni. 170. .Section in tlit' earth, sliowing trapdoor 

 nest of the female Rhytidicolus structor. (.\fter 

 Simon.) Fici. 171. Outline of first chamber of 

 Rhj'tidicolus structor, to sliow location of cocoon. 



