62 



into it from above. After the second night the door appeared nearly of the normal 

 texture and thickness, but in no case would it open completely, and it seemed that the 

 spider was too much disgusted with her quarters to think it worth while to make a 

 perfect door." 



These spiders are accustomed to put on their door moss like that which grows around 

 it, so as the more effectually to conceal it from observation. In one case where Moggridge 

 had cut out a little clod of mossy earth about two inches thick and three square on the 

 surface, containing the top of the tube and the moss-covered cork-like door of a Nemesia., 

 he found on revisiting the place, six days later, that a new door had been made, and that 

 the spider had mounted up to fetch moss from the undisturbed bank above, planting it in 

 the earth which formed the crown of the door. Here the moss actually called the eye to 

 the trap which lay in a little plain of brown earth made by his digging. 



The food of the European trap-door spiders consists largely of ants and other wing- 

 less insects, and they have been known to eat earth-worms and caterpillars. Mr. Mogg- 

 ridge has often seen them, even in the daytime, open their doors a little, and snatch at 

 passing insects, sometimes taking hold of one too large to draw into the tube. One time he 

 and some friends marked some holes, and went and watched them in the night. The doors 

 were slightly open, and some of the spiders' legs thrust out over the rim of the hole. He 

 held a beetle near one of the spiders ; and she reached the front part of her body out of 

 the tube, pushing the door wide open, seized the beetle, and backed quickly into the tube 

 again, the door closing by its own weight. Shortly after, she opened it again, and put 

 the beetle out alive and unliurt, probably because it was too hard to eat. He next drove 

 a sow-bug near another hole ; and the spider came out and snatched it in the same way, 

 and kept it. None of the spiders came entirely out of their holes, and they were only a 

 little more active than in the daytime. 



11. — Growth of Spiders — their Eggs and Cocoons. 



Persons i;nfamiliar with spiders find it hard to tell young from old, and male 

 from female. This is caused, in part, by the great differences between different 

 ages and sexes of the same spider, on account of which they are supposed to belong 

 to distinct species. 



The adult males and females are only distinguished from each other, and from the 

 young, by the complete development of organs peculiar to each sex. 



The males are usually smaller than the females, and have, in proportion to their size, 

 smaller abdomens and longer legs. They are usually darker coloured, especially on the 

 head and front part of the body ; and markings which are distinct in the female run 

 together and become darker in the male. In most species these differences are not great ; 

 but in some no one would ever suppose, without other evidence, that the males and 

 females had any relationship to each other. The most extreme cases of this kind are 

 Argiope and JVephila, where the male is about a tenth as large as the female. 



The female of one of the common crab spiders is white as milk, with a crimson 

 stripe on each side of the abdomen ; while the male is a little brown-and-yellow spider, 

 with dark markings of a pattern common in the family to which it belongs. 



When the female is prepared to lay her eggs, she makes a little web and drops them 

 upon it ; then she covers them over with silk, forming a cocoon, in which the young re- 

 maiji till some time after they are hatched. The laying of the eggs is seldom seen, for 

 the spider does it at night and in retired places, and often in captivity refuses to lay at all. 



Many spiders make their cocoons against a flat surface, where they remain attached 

 by one side. Attus mystaceus spins, before laying, a thick nest of white silk on the under 

 side of a stone. In this she thickens a circular patch on the iipper side, next the stone, 

 and discharges her eggs upward against it. They adhere and are covered with white silk. 



Epeira strix spins, l)efore laying, a bimch of loose silk ; she touches her spinnerets, draws 

 them away a short distance, at the same time pressing upward with the hind feet ; then she 

 moves the abdomen a little sideways, and attaches the band of threads so as to form a loop. 

 She keeps making these loops, turning round, at the same time, so as to form a 



