TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. 215 



I hope therefore that other naturalists will make 

 further investigations, and especially that they will 

 endeavour to secure the male. 



I obtained twelve spiders and thoroughly followed 

 the course of ten nests; I opened thirteen more 

 nests, but failed to trace their structure satisfactorily. 



The upper part of this nest is shown of the natural 

 size in Plate XVII. with the spider [Nemesia suffusa, 

 Camb."^) which constructs it. This is again a wafer 

 nest without any lower door^ and this absence of a 

 lower door alone distinguishes it as a type from the 

 branched nest represented at F in the diagram, just 

 as the same deficiency separated the Bordeaux type 

 from that at fig. E. 



In this new single-door branched type, the branch 

 makes a more or less acute angle with the main tube, 

 and reaches the surface of the ground, but is there 

 closed by a layer of particles of earth slightly bound 

 together with silk, forming an immovable cover or 

 thatch. This cover constitutes, however, but a slight 

 obstruction and could easily be torn away by the 

 spider if she needed to use this passage as a way of 

 escape. 



These nests were tolerably plentiful at a place 

 called Les Mourines, a short distance from Mont- 

 pellier, where they were mixed with cork nests in the 

 steep hedge banks. The nests were from 8 to 10 

 inches deep, and, as in all the trap-door nests which I 



* We have again in this instance an exemplification of the rule that a new 

 type of nest indicates the presence of a new spider, and hitherto, this rule has 

 proved without exception. Mr. Pickard-Cambridge's description of N. suffusa 

 will be found at p. 295, below. Its slender proportions, cylindrico-ovate abdo- 

 men, marked with narrow linear chevrons, and caput without, or almost without, 

 any median line or marking, form some of its more striking characteristics. 



