140 ARACHNIDA. 



sists of luli, Porcelliones, subterranean Achetce, and Blattce. 

 A living humming-bird and a small anolis placed in one of 

 its tubes, were not only not eaten by the spider, but the 

 latter quitted its hole, and left it in the possession of the 

 intruders. Mr. MacLeay consequently disbeheves the exist- 

 ence of any bird-catching spider. 



The tyi3e of the genus Cteniza is the Mygale cosmentaria 

 (Latreille, Araignee mafonne of Sauvages), or the mason or 

 trap-door spider, so named on accovmt of the curious struc- 

 ture of its nest, as observed by Sauvages, Dufour, and more 

 recently by Audouin, who has published an interesting ac- 

 count in the " Annales " of the French Entomological So- 

 ciety. These spiders dig in the dry and mountainous dis- 

 tricts of the south of Europe subterraneous galleries, of a 

 cylindrical tortuous form, to the depth of many inches (some- 

 times two feet) ; they also construct at the mouth of the 

 burrow, formed of silk and earth, a moveable operculum, or 

 trap-door, which is so attached as to exactly fit the entry to 

 the habitation, and to lift up and down. 



There are several of these trap-door spiders, one of which is 

 found in the Island of Naxos (C. ariana) ; another in Jamaica (C 

 nidulans); a third at MontpeUer {C. coementaria) \ a fourth (C 

 Sttuvagesi, described by M. Audouin) in Corsica ; and a fifth found 

 in various parts of New South Wales, by Mr. Bennet, and de- 

 scribed in his Wanderings in that Island (vol. i. p. 328). Mr. 

 Kirby has figured the Jamaica species and its nest in the frontis- 

 piece to the second volume of his Bridgewater Treatise, in which 

 he has also copied M. Audouin's figures. M. Dufour is of opi- 

 nion that it is the females alone wliich construct these nests, the 

 males being generally found under stones, and their structure not 

 appearing so weU adapted for building as that of the females. 



Some of the large species belonging to the genus Mygale 

 are commonly termed Tarantulce, or Tarentulce, a name 

 which is more strictly applicable to a species of Lycosa, found 

 in the south of Italy, and especially in the neighbourhood of 

 Tarentum in that country, whence it has obtained its ordi- 



