218 SUPPLEMENT TO 



Antipodes, and it may be regarded as one of the first 

 fruits of a harvest which lies ready for the reaping 

 of any naturalist resident in those parts. Hitherto the 

 only nests which I have seen or heard of from Australia 

 were of the cork type {Ants and Spiders, p. 132). 



Next in order to the single-door branched wafer 

 comes the double-door unhranched ivafer type, which 

 is the simplest of all the nests possessing two doors. 

 This habitation, the work of N. Eleanora, has been 

 already described {Ants and Spiders, p. 106), and I have 

 not much to add to the account there given. 



Perhaps some of my readers may remember that, 

 while I was actually engaged on the proofs of Ants 

 and Spiders I had one of these Eleanora spiders in 

 captivity, and that I gave an account (p. 148) of her 

 behaviour up to the latest moment possible. She 

 had been captured on October 23, 1872, and 

 placed, together with five young ones found with her 

 in the nest, on the surface of some earth in a medium - 

 sized flower-pot covered over with gauze. The young 

 ones soon made nests for themselves in the earth, each 

 furnished with its little door, but the mother roamed 

 about on the surface of the soil, and it was not 

 until she had been twenty-one days in captivity 

 that she commenced spinning a silk cell. 



This cell in twelve days' time presented the form 

 of a rude figure of 8, and had an aperture at either 

 end ; it was just large enough to contain the spider 

 when the legs were extended ; its upper surface 

 was attached to the gauze covering of the pot, and its 

 lower to the earth. It was at this stage that the 

 record was broken off', and I will now relate the 

 remainder of the history. 



