98 TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. 



to search I should have discovered more nests, and 

 perhaps others which were still tenanted. 



We now turn from the single-door nests to those 

 with double doors, and from the well known to the 

 new types of structure. 



In these we have a thin and wafer-like door at the 

 mouth of the nest, and froiu two to four inches lower 

 down, a second and solid underground door. These 

 lower doors are characteristic of the nests to which 

 they belong, that of the branched nest [Nemesia meri- 

 dionalis, Plate IX.) being long and more or less 

 tongue-shaped, while that of the unbranched double- 

 door nest {N. Eleanor a, Plate XII. p. 106) is some- 

 what horse- shoe shaped. 



The surface doors of these two kinds of nest do not 

 appear to differ, and, though rather thinner, may be 

 compared to those of the single-door wafer kind from 

 Jamaica. 



The commonest form at Mentone is the branched 

 nest, which may be found in abundance in many of 

 the loosely-built walls of the lemon and olive ter- 

 races or on sloping banks, but they are rarely to be 

 met with on flat ground. 



In the nests of Nemesia meridionalis the tube, 

 instead of being simple, as it is in all other known 

 nests, is invariably branched, a second tube joining 

 the first at the point where the lower door is hung 

 and forming with it an angle of about 45°. The main 

 tube descends and is frequently curved, or sometimes 

 doubly bent like the spout of a tea-kettle (A, Plate X. 

 p. 100), while the branch ascends, and in some few 

 instances reaches the surface, though it is usually a cul 

 de sac (Plate IX.) 



