ELISHA MITCHELI. SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 



139 



- c 



earth. The next mornini^ she had doue nothing toward the con- 

 strnction of a new home, but on the 25th she had made a brave 

 beginning. From the surface of the earth there stretched up 

 along the glass wall a delicate tube 7 cm. long and 1.8 cm. in 

 diameter. At 10 a. m. she was oflFered a fly. She struck it 

 through the tube wall with her fangs and seemed to kill it almost 

 instantly, but for some reason she withdrew her fangs, letting 

 the fly fall to the earth at the side of the tube. In a few min- 

 utes she was passing her long posterior pair of spinnerets here 

 and there over the inner wall of the tube, but discontinued it 

 after a minute or two. At 9 p. m. a shallow hole had been dug 

 in the earth at the bottom of the tube directly beneath its cavity, 

 and the excavated dirt had been put out through a rent near the 

 upper end of the tube. The fly was nowhere to be seen. The 

 next morning (November 26th) at 8 o'clock the excavation had 

 been deepened some 3 cm. and turned obliquely to the left. 

 More earth had been put out through the 

 same rent. The spider, head up, was 

 resting at the lower extremity of the tube. 

 This stage in the construction of the tube 

 is represented in the accompanying illus- 

 tration (Fig. 1). 



And so the next three nights the tube 

 lengthened as the excavation deepened, the 

 little dump heap growing pro{)ortionately. 

 It was now 13 cm. long. For some 3 

 cm. below the middle it had left the glass 

 wall, so that in that part of it a film of 

 earth separated them; but in the upper 

 and lower portions the wall of the jar, fig. i.- Beginning ot tube 



.,,1 T, . iP'ii *iid excavation of Atypus 



With hardly one continuous coat OI silk, nigerHentz(?) in glass jar. a, 



p ,1 p .1 11 „ the tube adhering by a por- 



lormed about one-iourth or the wall ot tion of its waii throughout its 



length to the jar; b, earth 



the tube. The tube, however, was not a p^i^'y fi"ins jar; c, threads 



■^ of silk attaching tube to jar; 



linincr for the excavation. Evidently the ^' ^}^ ^S kT^ T*"^"^ '"*° !*"? 



c5 - earth ;y^ hillock of excavated 



excavation was made to receive the tube. X\n5'"dtmped^ura';t 

 See the diagram, Fig. Ill of the Plate. ty^'irJl^rir^^^^^^^^^^^ '''^"''' 

 In one stretch of 4 cm. the wall of the tube was as much as 5 

 mm. from the wall of the excavation. 



d . . 



a 



...i 



