248 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



had been spun from side to side of the tube, he watched the spider 

 making one or two hasty sorties, apparently spinning all the while; and 

 finally saw her gather up an armful, as it were, of earth and lay this on 

 the web. 



After this the occupant of the tube was concealed, but the observer 

 could see from the movement of the particles of earth that they were be- 

 ing consolidated, and that the weaving of the under surface of the door 

 was being completed. Next morning he could lift up the door, which 

 had the form of a small cup of silk, in which the earth lay. It was then 

 soft and pliant, but in ten days' time it had hardened and become a very 

 fair specimen of a minute door of the "cork" type. 1 



He had watched the proceedings of young spiders when taken from 

 the mother's nest in the following species : Nemesia manderstjernae, Nemesia 

 eleanora, Nemesia congener, and Nemesia moggridgii, the first three con- 

 structing wafer doors and the last a thick beveled or cork door nest. All 

 of these very young spiders will excavate their own tubes and bring out 

 pellets of earth, which closely resemble those carried out from their galler- 

 ies by ants. 



The young brood while still in the mother's nest will often comprise 

 individuals of different sizes, and, though a majority are no larger than 

 one-fourth of an inch long, some may occasionally be found that are fully 

 twice as large. The little nests which they make in captivity vary accord- 

 ingly in size. A large number made in captivity varied in size from two 

 lines (one-sixth inch) to three lines (one-fourth inch) in width. 



These little spiders need to be kept constantly supplied with flies, 

 which should be killed and placed near their nests. They are often so 

 greedy that they will try to drag a house fly into their tubes, for which 

 it is much too large, and when the door is pushed open the fly remains 

 sticking in the entrance of the nest, with its legs up in the air. One may 

 often feed these by approaching carefully without causing any vibra- 

 tion, pushing the fly, placed on the end of a pencil, within reach of the 

 spider. 2 



Mr. Moggridge entertains the opinion that, as a rule, the mature trap- 

 door nest with its hinged lid is the result of many successive enlarge- 

 ments, beginning with the diminutive tube of the baby spider, 

 Nest De- 



, " which is no bigger than a crow quill. This infantile home is 



ment. no ^ abandoned, but is enlarged from time to time according to 

 the growth of the inhabitant, and becomes the abode of the 

 full grown spider. 



Of course, this must require a series of months, and possibly of years, 

 for its accomplishment, and it is not unlikely, judging from what we know 

 of the prolonged life of some of the Territelariae of other families (for 



1 Moggridge, Trapdoor Spiders, page 119. 2 Trapdoor Spiders, Supplement, 245. 



