Miscellaneous. 281 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Note on the Intelligence of the American Turret-Spider. 
Tur Rey. Dr. H. C. McCook exhibited nests of Tarentula areni- 
cola, Scudder, a species of ground-spider of the family Lycoside, 
popularly known as the Turret-Spider, These nests, in natural 
site, are surmounted by structures which quite closely resemble 
miniature old-fashioned chimneys, composed of mud and crossed 
sticks, as seen in the log cabins of pioneer settlers. From half an 
inch to one inch of the tube projects above ground, while it extends 
straight downwards twelve or more inches into the earth. The pro- 
jecting portion or turret is in the form of a pentagon, more or less 
regular, and is built up of bits of grass, stalks of straw, small twigs, 
&e. laid across each other at the corners. ‘The upper and projecting 
parts have a thin lining of silk. Taking its position just inside the 
watch-tower, the spider leaps out and captures such insects as may 
come in its way. ‘The speaker has found nests of the species at the 
base of the Allegheny Mountains near Altoona, and in New Jersey 
on the seashore. In the latter location the animal had availed itself 
of the building-material at hand, by forming the foundation of its 
watch-tower of little quartz pebbles, sometimes producing a structure 
of considerable beauty. In this sandy site the tube is preserved 
intact by a delicate secretion of silk, to which the particles of sand 
adhere. Thissecretion scarcely presents the character of a web-lining, 
but has sufficient consistency to hold aloft a frail cylinder of sand 
and silk, when the sand is carefully scooped away from the site of 
the nest. 
A nest recently obtained from Vineland, N. J., furnished an in- 
teresting illustration of the power of these araneads to intelligently 
adapt themselves to varying surroundings, and to take advantage of 
circumstances with which they certainly could not have been previ- 
ously familiar. In order to preserve the nest, with a view to study 
the life-history of its occupant, the sod containing the tube had been 
carefully dug up and the upper and lower openings plugged with 
cotton. Upon the arrival of the nest in Philadelphia the plug 
guarding the entrance had been removed, but the other had been 
forgotten and allowed to remain. The spider, which still inhabited 
the tube, immediately began removing the cotton at the lower por- 
tion, and cast some of it out. But, guided apparently by its sense 
of touch to the knowledge that the soft fibres of the cotton would 
be an excellent material with which to line its tube, it speedily 
began putting it to that use, and had soon spread a soft smooth layer 
over the inner surface and around the opening. ‘The nest, in this 
condition, was exhibited and showed the interior to be padded for 
about 4 inches from the summit of the tower. Dr. McCook pointed 
out the very manifest inference that the spider must for the first time 
‘have come in contact with such a material as cotton, and had imme- 
diately utilized its new experience by substituting the soft fibre for 
the ordinary silken lining, or rather adding it thereto.— Proc. Acad. 
Nat. Sci. Philad., June 19, 1883, p. 131. \ 
