3T6. Mr. F. Enock on the 



probal)le that each branch had become flattened and 

 attached to the bank during the winters, the spider 

 adding a new one each spring-time. 



Some time ago I placed a flat piece of slate on the 

 aerial portion of a tube, leaving a very small part visible. 

 In a day or two the spider commenced to eject the sand, 

 and form a new aerial portion. 



In one of the examples of branched tubes you will 

 observe the branch is at the subterranean end. I think 

 this has been formed in consequence of some disturbance 

 of the soil, which at Woking is exceedingly light, 

 and it is possible that a severe blow from the shovel of 

 the road-repairer might have driven a stone down on to 

 the tube an inch or so from the end, flattening it in ; 

 and when the spider desired to deepen, it had no 

 alternative but to start a branch. 



Before leaving the subject of the form of the tubes, I 

 will endeavour to answer another of the questions 

 suggested by Mr. Moggridge,* viz., "Do the young, like 

 their relatives in the south, construct nests like those of 

 their parents in miniature ? " To this I reply that they 

 certainly do follow the example of their parents in every 

 way, and to quote the words of Mr. Moggridge, when 

 referring to the nest of the true trap-door spiders, 

 "I believe that the nests are, as a rule, the result of 

 many successive enlargements, and that the nest of the 

 infant, the tube of which is no bigger than a crow-quill, 

 is not abandoned, but becomes that of a full-grown 

 spider. This must require time, but how long, whether 

 months or years, we have yet to learn." 



I am afraid it will be many years before I am able to 

 give much proof as to the age to which these spiders 

 attain. As I said before, the ground at Hampstead is 

 constantly changing from various causes, and I have had 

 great difficulty in obtaining proof positive of the age of 

 any one female. Though I marked some of the tubes 

 which were in the most concealed places, yet these pegs 

 and the tubes were constantly destroyed by the swarms 

 of holiday-folk, who wear all the grass and everything 

 else off the face of the earth. 



I paid a visit to my old Hampstead colony on April 



- 'Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders' (Supplement), p. 187. 

 f ' Harvesting Ants and Trai)-(loor Spiders,' p. 123, 



