THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Nos.148 &149.] NOVEMBER, MDCCCLXXY. [Price 1s. 
Trap-door Spiders in the Bark of Trees. By E. Newman. 
“Tr is now one hundred and sixteen years since Patrick 
Browne gave an illustration, in his ‘Civil and Natural History 
of Jamaica,’ p. 420, tab. 44, fig. 3, of the nest of a trap-door 
spider, the first record of the kind with which I am acquainted 
[published in London in 1756]. Seven years later the careful 
observations of the Abbé Sauvages appeared [in the ‘ His- 
toire de l’Acad. Royales des Sciences, pp. 26—30, published 
in Paris, 1763], in which he gave a very good description of 
the nests of the ‘Araignée magonne’ (Nemesia cementaria), 
: which he discovered near Montpellier, likening them to little 
rabbit-burrows lined with silk, and closed by a tightly-fitting, 
movable door. Rossi [in an article intituled, “ Observatione 
Insettologische,” published in the ‘Memorie di Matematica 
et Fisica della Societa Italiana, vol. iv. 1778; and ‘ Fauna 
Etrusca, vol. ii. 1794] published an interesting account of the 
nest and habits of a trap-door spider, which he had observed 
in Corsica, and near Pisa; and from that time up to the present 
day the curious dwellings of these creatures, many of which 
have been discovered in warm climates, have continued to 
attract the attention of naturalists.” 
The foregoing extract is from a work intituled, ‘ Harvesting 
Ants and Trap-door Spiders, by J. Traherne Moggeridge, 
part ii. p. 73. The mode in which these residences are con- 
structed is admirably explained by Mr. Gosse, at page 115 of 
his ‘ Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica.’ Both these authors— 
Mr. Moggeridge, alas! is no more—are inimitable in their 
Btaphic descriptions of the habits and manners of the living ; 
a science totally apart from the anatomical details of the 
VOL, VIII. SF 
