122 TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. 



Certain nests which were furnished with two doors 

 of the cork type were observed by Mr. S. S. Saunders* 

 in the Ionian Islands. The door at the surface of 

 these nests was normal in position and structure, but 

 the lower one was placed at the very bottom of the 

 nest and inverted, so that, though apparently in- 

 tended to open downwards, it was permanently closed 

 by the surrounding earth. The presence of a cai-e- 

 fully constructed door in a situation which forbade 

 the possibility of its ever being opened seemed, 

 indeed, something difficult to account for. However, 

 it occurred to Mr. Saunders that, as these nests were 

 found in the cultivated gi'ound round tlie roots of 

 olive-trees, they may occasionally have got turned 

 topsy-turvy when the soil was broken up. The 

 spider then, finding her door buried below in the 

 ground and the bottom of the tube at the surface, 

 would have either to seek new quarters or to adapt 

 the nest to its altered position, and make an opening 

 and door at the exposed end. In order to try 

 whether one of these spiders would do this Mr. 

 Saunders placed a nest, with its occupant inside, up- 

 side down in a flower-pot. After the lapse of ten 

 days a new door was made, exactly as he had conjec- 

 tured it would be, and the nest presented two doors 

 like those which he had found at first. 



There is a specimen of one of these inverted nests, 

 with its two doors, in the British Museum, and this 

 might easily be supposed, at first sight, to be an 

 example of a new kind of double-door nest. On close 

 inspection, however, it will be seen that one of the 



• Description of a sjjecies of Mygale from Ionia in Trans, of Eut. Soc. 

 (London, 1839), III. p. 160. 



