80 TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. 



one door, while C and D have two, these latter having 

 a surface door, and also another door a short way 

 under ground. 



All the nests consist of a tube excavated in the 

 earth to a greater or less depth, unbranched in all but 

 D, and in every case lined with silk, this lining being 

 continuous with the lining of the door or doors of 

 which it forms the hinge, 



I have found it convenient to distinguish these 

 four types of nests by the following names : — A, the 

 single door cork nest, or shortly tlie cork nest ; B, the 

 single door wafer nest; C, the double door unbranched 

 nest ; and D, the double door branched nest. 



The type B has only been found in the West India 

 Islands, and is chiefly distinguished from A by hav- 

 ing a thin and wafer-like door, wholly constructed of 

 silk, Avithout admixture of earth, lying on rather 

 than fitting into the aperture of the tube ; while in 

 A the door is much thicker, made of layers of earth 

 and silk, and so contrived that it tightly closes the 

 mouth of the tube, which is bevelled to receive it, 

 much as a cork closes the neck of a bottle.* 



The West Indian nests are of a much tougher and 

 coarser texture than those which I have seen in 

 Europe, and vary somewhat in the shape of their 

 tube, which is curved or straight, and sometimes has 

 near its lower extremity a short spur-shaped enlarge- 

 ment, giving to the whole a ludicrous resemblance 

 to a stocking, of which this spur is the heel. 



Mr. Gosse,t in his Naturalist' s Sojourn in Jamaica, 



* Nests belonging to the type A, are represented in Plates VII., p. 88, 

 and VIII., p. 94. 



t Gosse (P. H.), Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica (1851), jx 115-118. See 

 also for another description of the same nest Latreille's Vues Generales sur 

 les Araueides, in the Nouv. Ann. du Museum (Paris, 1832), torn. i. p. 73-4. 



