APPENDIX. 149 



potS; partly filled with earth and covered with gauze, but I 

 have never been able to detect the least inclination on the 

 part of either of these spiders to excavate a burrow in the 

 earth. 



Thinking that I might have better success if I were to 

 place the mother spiders, together with their young, in 

 captivity, I captured a female N. Dieridionalis and N. 

 Eleanora, each with its brood, and placed them on moist 

 earth in flower-pots under gauze. The result, however, was 

 tliat the young spiders concealed themselves in the crevices 

 of the soil, while the mother spiders remained exposed. 



The adult N. meridionalis lived thus for twenty days 

 (from the 7th to the 27th of November), capturing and 

 killing flies with which I supplied her, but she then suddenly 

 died. 



After seventeen days' captivity the other species (N. 

 Eleanora) began to cover a small surface of the gauze with 

 a semi-transparent substance (which resembled varnish rather 

 than silk), secreted from its spinners, and four days later it 

 began to weave a cell ; this cell took twelve days to complete, 

 and finally assumed the shape of a rudely-formed figure of 8, 

 with a circular aperture at either end, each of which was kept 

 open during the construction of the cell, and then closed. 

 The gauze itself, covered with silk, formed the ceiling of the 

 cell, while the floor was made of silk attached to the earth, 

 and the sides of strong and rather opaque silk. 



This cell bore no resemblance to any portion of any trap- 

 door nest that I have ever seen, and it is difficult to conceive 

 how the idea of such a structure presented itself to the spider. 

 Its outline indeed had some likeness to the general outline of 

 the spider herself, one loop of the figure 8 being rather smaller 

 than the other. The distance between the floor and the 

 ceiling of this impromptu cell was a little over half an inch, 

 its width varying from one inch in the broadest to eight lines 

 in the narrowest part, while its length was an inch and a 

 quarter. 



It would appear that the object which the spider had in view 

 was to construct a warm and secure retreat for the winter, and 

 accordingly alter having completed this chamber, she no longer 



