BURROWS OF HAMSTER AND MYGALE. 531 



of extreme elegance ; and no one can watch the labours of a 

 common garden spider, as, for instance, the Epeira diadema 

 (fig. 269), without being struck with the marvellous sagacity 

 which it displays in the execution of its work, and the per- 

 fection with which its web is constructed. 



699. An equally curious instinct is often displayed in the 

 construction of the habitations which the animal designs for 

 its abode. Thus the 



Hamster (fig. 270), a 

 small rodent animal 

 allied to the Eat, which 

 is met with in most 

 cultivated districts on 

 the Continent from 

 Alsace to Siberia, and 

 which is very injurious 

 to agriculture, con- Fig. 27o.-iiAMST E n. 



structs a burro win the 



soil which has always two openings, one in an oblique direc- 

 tion, which serves the animal for casting out the earth it has 

 dug away, the other perpendicular, which is the passage by 

 which it enters and makes its exit. These galleries lead to 

 a regular series of circular excavations, which communicate 

 with each other by horizontal passages ; one of these cavities, 

 furnished with a bed of dried herbage, is the abode of the 

 Hamster; while the others serve as magazines for the pro- 

 visions which it collects in large quantities. 



700. There are certain Spiders known to Zoologists under 

 the name of Mygale, which perform operations analogous to 

 those of the Hamster, but still more complicated ; for not 

 only do they excavate in the ground a large and commodious 

 habitation, but they line it with a silken tapestry, and 

 furnish it with a door regularly hung upon a hinge (fig. 271). 

 For this purpose, the Mygale digs, in a clayey soil, >a sort of 

 cylindrical pit, about 3 or 4 inches in length ; and plasters 



-its walls with a kind of very consistent mortar. It then 

 constructs, of alternate layers of earth, and of threads woven 

 into a web, a trap-door exactly adapted to the orifice of its 

 hole, and only capable of opening outwards ; and it attaches 

 this by a hinge of the same thread to the tapestried lining of 

 its chamber. The outside of this trap-door is covered with 



