ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 25 



not be made to touch it even by being angered, but would 

 turn and run away as if in great fear. After returning the 

 spider to her nest, Dec. 8, I placed in the jar two ants and a 

 small carabid beetle. The ants hid themselves in the earth. 

 Dec. 14th, the beetle was still unharmed and I concluded 

 the spider did not come out for food. I then lifted the trap- 

 door and placed the beetle inside. Dec. 16, I found the bro- 

 ken hard parts of the beetle strewn about just outside the 

 nest. It had been killed, the soft parts eaten by the spider, 

 and the parts of the skeleton ejected from the nest. Jan. 17, 

 'S6, I placed a half dozen large yellow ants in the jar.' As 

 they attacked her she would catch and crush them but I did 

 not see that she ate any of them. 



Jan. 2, '86, which was like a summer da}' at Chapel Hill, 

 I went into the woods for the purpose of collecting some 

 mo.ss. While tearing up a large patch of this, at the foot of 

 a tree, I discovered a hole which I thought to be the nest of 

 a trap-door spider. I dug down into the tube and found at 

 the bottom a spider belonging to this family. In the after- 

 noon I found several nests and one more female spider. 

 Under some stones I found a male. I placed them in jars 

 of earth containing moss. One of the females escaped ; the 

 other built a nest and made a slanting double door, which 

 might be compared to an outside cellar door. Each door is 

 made of moss cemented with silk and hung by a semicircular 

 hinge. These the spider will open and shut at pleasure, 

 sometimes fastening them together with a thread of silk. In 

 both of the nests in which I found these spiders, there were 

 the lemains of ants. I had intended to illustrate and describe 

 farther the nests and habits of these found by myself at 

 Chapel Hill, as they are lively creatures and seem to offer 

 interesting objects for study as to habit, food and architect- 

 ure. But as this article is already long, and I wish to make 

 further collections and study their habits more closely in 

 captivity I will reserve the subject for a future time. 



'The spider was not in her nest. 



