UNDER GENIAL SKIES 



Occasionally we found one about half the usual 

 size, indicating a young spider, but no other sizes. 

 My guide said they only emerge from their tunnel 

 at night, and proved it by an ingenious mechanical 

 device made of straws attached to the door. When 

 the door was opened, the straws lifted up, but did 

 not fall down when it was closed. Whenever he 

 found the straw still up in the morning he knew 

 the door had been opened in the night. 



As they are nocturnal in habits, they doubtless 

 prey upon other insects, such as sow-bugs and 

 crickets, which the night brings forth. Two bright 

 specks upon the top of the head appear to be eyes, 

 but they are so small they probably only serve to 

 enable them to tell night from day. I think these 

 spiders are mainly guided by a marvelously acute 

 tactile sense. They probably feel the slightest 

 vibration in the earth or air, unless they have a 

 sixth sense of which we know nothing. 



All their work, the building and repairing of 

 their nests, as well as all their hunting, is done by 

 night. This habit, in connection with their ex- 

 treme shyness, makes the task of getting at their 

 life-histories a difficult one. The inside of the 

 burrow seems coated with a finer and harder sub- 

 stance than the soil in which they are dug. It is 

 made on the spot, the spider mixing some secretion 

 of her own with the clay, and working it up into 

 a finer product. 



135 



