March — April 1S90.] 



PSYCHE. 



333 



New Trap-door Xests of Spiders. — In 

 two recent papers, Arachnides du Venezuela, 

 ^Ann. soc. ent. de France, 1SS9, v. 9) and 

 Avicularidae du Nord de I'Afrique, (Actes 

 soc. Linneenne de Bordeaux) E. Simon de- 

 scribes and figures a number of new nests of 

 mygalidae. Among the Venezuela species, 

 Pscudidiops opifex makes a short tube with 

 trap-door on branches of trees. The tube is 

 attached to the bark by one side and covered 

 with bits of bark and lichens. Stothis asiuta 

 makes a short tube with a trap-door at each 

 end. sometimes the tube is among loose rub- 

 bish on the surface of the ground and is then 

 straight. In other places where the soil is 

 more solid it burrows obliquely below the 

 surface, carries the tube a short distance just 

 under groimd and turns it up again to the 

 surface. Rhytidicoltis structor makes a nest 

 of three distinct chambers connected by 

 narrow openings both closed by trap-doors, 

 the one between the first and second cham- 

 bers opening inwards. The cocoon is flat 

 and is hung across the outer chamber. Psal- 

 istops melanofygia makes a tubular burrow, 

 lined partly with silk, and with a branch near 

 the upper end like many other species, but 

 with no trap-door, and conceals the mouth 

 of the tube with leaves and rubbish. Epi- 

 pedesis opifex makes a simple furrow on the 

 surface of the ground under a stone or moss 

 and covers it with silk. 



Among the African species Leptopelma 

 c«f/co/rt makes a branched tube without any 

 trap-door. Dolickoscaptus latastei carries its 

 tube with trap-door ten centimeters above the 

 surface of the ground making it stift'with bits 

 of dirt and leaves fastened with silk to the 

 outside. Dolic/ioscaptiis vittatiis was found 

 in several cases to bore at the bottom of its 

 burrow a short tube too small for the spider, 

 filled with the remains of insects that it had 

 eaten. Dolickoscaptus artifex makes a very 

 peculiar,complicated burrow. At the mouth it 

 has the usual flat trap-door. A short distance 

 below the surface the burrow is enlarged into 



a spherical cavity in which works a door of a 

 different kind. It consists of a lump of dirt 

 covered with silk, shaped like half an egg 

 with the edges rounded oif and large enough 

 to half fill the spherical cavity. When turned 

 with its longest diameter vertical and its con- 

 vex side against the wall of the cavity it leaves 

 room for the spider to pass on the opposite 

 side from the upper to the lower part of the 

 burrow. When turned with its longest diam- 

 eter across the burrow it closes it completely. 

 To complicate this arrangement still more, 

 a flexible tube of silk, continuous with the 

 lining of the lower part of the burrow and 

 open at the top, is attached along the flat side 

 of this door so that when the door is open 

 the spider passes up or down through this 

 tube, and when the door is closed the tube is 

 flattened against the side of the burrow. 



y. H. Einer/on. 



Otiurhvnchus sulcatus injurious to 

 plant.s in greenhouses in massachu- 

 SETTS.— Mr. W. M. Corving of West Rox- 

 bury wrote me 5 March, 1SS9, that the Cycla- 

 mens in the greenhouses of the Messrs. 

 Fisher Brothers of Montvale, Mass., were 

 seriously injured by a beetle. The injuries 

 were confined chiefly to the flowers but some- 

 times the bulb was destroyed. The leaves 

 being hard and leathery escape injury. Mr. 

 Corving sent me a specimen which proved 

 to be the well known European weevil Otior. 

 hynchus siilcatus^ the existence of which in 

 Massachusetts has been known for a very 

 long time. Dr. Horn gives as localities Mas- 

 sachusetts, Canada, Newfoundland and Nova 

 Scotia; all of these are represented in the 

 Leconte collection. The general collection 

 of the Museum contains two specimens from 

 Europe (Ziegler collection) and six speci- 

 mens collected in Cambridge in 1S72 by Boll. 

 I was interested to know when and by whom 

 the beetle was first recognized here. Scho- 

 enherr (Cure, 1843, v- 7, p. 371) gives O. 

 apicitlatiis Say Mss. as a synonym of O- sul~ 



