
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 135 
workmanlike manner in which the Sun-bird visited them all. 
Mr. Scott Elliot is of opinion, however, that this plant is also 
visited by night-flying moths of the Sphinx order. 
The Rev. G. A. Frank Knight, M.A., exhibited a number of 
nests of the Trap-door Spider (Cteniza camentaria, Latr.), which 
he had gathered at Hyéres, in the South of France, during April, 
1896. The most westerly of the health-resorts of the Riviera, 
Hyéres is not situated on the sea-coast, but at a distance of three 
miles from the shore, while the large fortified city of Toulon is 
about five or six miles still further towards the west. At the 
back of the town there rises a curious precipitous hill, flanked with 
crags on two of its sides, and crowned with a ruined fortress, 
From this “coign of vantage” there is an extensive view of the 
wall of mountains towards the north, while southwards the eye 
sweeps over the undulating country dotted with the groups of 
palm trees for which Hyéres is famous, till it rests upon the long 
line of the Mediterranean, the blue expanse of which is broken 
here and there by groups of small islands. This hillside is lined 
with many a path, and on the banks of these shady walks, amongst 
the reddish soil, the trap-door spider makes its home. 
Mr. Knight described how wonderfully the spider manages to 
conceal its nest, making the lid of its hole to correspond most 
closely with the character of the surrounding soil. Indeed, once 
the door is closed, it is almost hopeless to attempt to look for the 
orifice in the ground. The specimens exhibited showed that the 
external coat of the nest is coarse and crumpled, more like the 
rough bark of a tree than a spider's web. But inside there is a 
layer of a very different character. It is smooth to the eye, and of 
a silken softness to the touch, and when examined by a microscope 
it is seen that the surface is composed of minute threads twisted 
together without the least apparent order. The subterranean 
galleries constructed by these spiders are sometimes of great length, 
and tortuous to such an extent that traces of them are soon lost. 
In connection with the formation of the lid—the characteristic 
feature of the homes of these spiders—Mr. Knight pointed out a 
fact which had come under his observation. While removing the 
superfluous earth and pebbles from the nest, after it had been dug 
out from the ground, he found that, in many cases, the spider had 
adopted a plan of making sure that the door would shut easily and 
