TRAP -DOOR SPIDERS. 117 



them, T have never been able to secure more than 

 a single male spider.* During the winter, spring, 

 and late autumn (October) the female appears to live 

 solitary, in the daytime at least, and the male proba- 

 bly hides in the crevices of old walls and in similar 

 places. I have diligently turned over piles of stone, 

 greatly to the annoyance of many little scorpions, but 

 have never secured, or even seen, another male spider. 

 This is the more to be regretted as the species of 

 trap-door spider are much better characterized in the 

 male than in the female sex, the bulb-like enlarge- 

 ment which is found at the end of the palpi in the 

 former taking on a great variety of forms, each of 

 which is distinctive. 



M. de Walckenaerf says: — "C'est toujours pen- 

 dant la nuit que ces araneides travaillent a leurs 

 habitations et courent apres leur proie. C'est en 

 Aout que la Mygale mayonne {Nemesia — or Mygcde — 



ccementarid) atteint toute sa grosseur En 



Septembre elle devient mere et mechante en meme 



temps les m ouches, les moucherons, les 



petits vers lui servent de pature ; elle les prend dans 

 les filets qu'elle etend et attache sur les iuegalites des 

 terres voisines de sa demeure. Elle vit apres la ponte 

 en societe avec son male. Dorthes a vu plusieurs fois, 

 dans la meme habitation, le male et la femelle avec 

 une trentaine de petits." 



Any one, therefore, who has an opportunity of exa- 

 mining the nests during the early autumn, might 



* Three days before sending this ^IS. to print, and long after the plates 

 had been coiiiijleted. I captured on Oct. 23rd one male of Stmcsia Eleunora. 

 He lay crouched in a crevice in a mossy bank, and had, perhaps, been driven 

 out of some deeper hiding-place by the heavy rains. 



+ Les Araneides de France, p. 4. 



