242 SUPPLEMENT TO 



their nests, and their behaviour by night appeared to 

 be the same as by day, only that they were bolder 

 and more on the alert. 



The spiders in the cork nests {N. Moggridgii) re- 

 sisted our attempts to raise their doors just as rigor- 

 ously as in the daytime. 



All the spiders which I have kept in captivity have 

 shown themselves more active at night than during 

 the day, and I imagine that experience has taught 

 them that fewer of their enemies are then abroad, 

 while ants, beetles, wood-lice, and other creatures upon 

 which they prey are quite as nocturnal as themselves. 



I brought back to England some young cork and 

 wafer spiders from Hyeres, and one adult cork {N. 

 Moggriclfjii). The latter was placed in a small tin 

 box, with moss and a little earth at the bottom, on 

 the evening of May the 10th, 1873, and by next 

 morning she had made a silk tube through the moss, 

 carrying up earth from below for the purpose ot 

 strengthening its walls on the outside. On the 18th 

 of May the tube was furnished with a perfect door. 



I hoped that this spider might lay eggs in her 

 prison,* and therefore broke up her nest from time to 

 time after my return to London in order to search 

 for them. Between the 27th of May (when her nest 

 had been transferred into a box of earth) and the 6th 

 of October I destroyed her dwelling four times, and 

 after each demolition she furnished the cylindrical 

 hole which I bored for her with a lid, having thus 

 made five doors since her capture. I got no eggs 



* Strange to say, though I have opened so many nests at different seasons of 

 the year, and found young apparently ai.ite recently hatched, 1 have never been 

 able to find the eggs of a trap-door spider. 



