TEA P-DOOR SPIDERS. Ill 



to whom has been before made, and of whose kind exertions some 

 acknowledgment is thus permanently recorded. 



In fig. A, Plate XII., the upper door, which, if 

 closed, would be entirely hidden by the long filmy 

 mosses which surround and cover it, is represented 

 open ; but it should be clea.rly understood that this is 

 artificial and not natural, as in reality these doors 

 close of their own accord by means of their weight 

 and the elasticity of the hinge. It will be seen that 

 living mosses of two kinds are worked into the upper 

 surface of this door, which was admirably concealed, 

 (fig. A 1, Plate XII.). 



It is chiefly in the absence of the branch and the 

 different form of the lower door that the nest of 

 Nemesia Eleanora differs from that of N. meridio- 

 nalis ; and, as they inhabit the same localities, it is 

 only when one has dug down as far as the lower 

 door that it can be known to which of the two species 

 the nest belongs. When once this point is reached 

 however, ail doubt is at an end; for in this case the 

 unbranched double-door nest differs from the branched 

 in a way which any child could realize, though the 

 respective spiders are not very dissimilar when seen 

 with the naked eye alone. This affords a good 

 instance of the benefit which may accrue to a collector 

 from a study of the habits of the creatures which he 

 collects, for it is certain that it was the nest in this 

 case which first proclaimed the distinctness of its 

 tenant. 



Nemesia Eleanora is rather less common at Men- 

 tone than N. meridionalis, but at Cannes I found the 

 reverse to be the case. At the latter place, on the 

 northern slope of the little hill of St. Cassien, branched 



