NATURE 
337 
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1873 
HARVESTING ANTS AND TRAP-DOOR 
SPIDERS 
Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders. Notes and 
Observations on their Habits and Dwellings. By J. 
Traherne Moggridge, F.L.S. (L. Reeve and Co., 1873.) 
— beautifully illustrated little book is a good 
example of what can be done by a careful ob- 
server in a very short time. It might have been thought 
that the habits of European insects were pretty well 
known, and that a person comparatively new to the sub- 
ject could not hope to add much to our knowledge. But 
the fact is quite otherwise, for Mr. Moggridge, in the 
course of a few winters spent in the south of Europe has, 
by careful observation, thrown considerable light on the 
habits and economy of two important groups of insects, 
and, as regards one of them, has disproved the dogmatic 
assertions of several eminent entomologists. Nothing is 
more curious than the pertinacity with which scientific 
men will often draw general conclusions from their own 
special observations, and then use these conclusions to set 
aside the observations of other men. Mr. Moggridge now 
confirms, in many of their minutest details, the accounts 
given by classical writers of the habits of ants. , These 
habits were recorded with so much appearance of minute 
observation, that they bear the impress of accuracy ; yet 
because the Ants of England and of Central Europe have 
different habits, it was concluded that the old authors 
invented all these details, and that they were at once 
accepted as truths and became embodied in the familiar 
sayings of the time. The ants were described as as- 
cending the stalks of cereals and gnawing off the grains, 
while others below detached the seed from the chaff and 
. carried it home; as gnawing off the radicle to prevent ger- 
Mination, and spreading their stores in the sun to dry 
after wet weather. Latreille, Huber, Kirby, Blanchard, 
_ and many less eminent authors, treat these statements 
_ with contempt, and give reasons why they cannot be true 
for European species, yet we here find them verified in 
every detail by observations at Mentone and other places 
on the shores of the Mediterranean. Mr. Moggridge has, 
however, supplemented these observations by discovering 
the granaries in which they are stored (sometimes ex- 
cavated in solid rock), of which accurate plans are given. 
_ He has seen them in the act of collecting seeds, and has 
traced seeds to the granaries, from which all husks and 
refuse are carefully carried away ; he has seen them bring 
out the grains to dry after rain, and nibble off the radicle 
from those which were germinating ; lastly, he has seen 
_ them (in confinement) feed on the seedssocollected. Avery 
curious point is, that the collections of seeds, although 
stored in very damp situations, very rarely germinate ; yet 
nothing has been done to deprive them of vitality, for‘on 
being sown they grow vigorously. The species of harvest- 
ingants observed were, Pheidole megacephala, Attastructor, 
A. barbara, and a larger and differently coloured variety of 
the last. A/ta structor is found over a large part of Cen- 
tral Europe, yet, as it has never been observed to lay up 
stores of seeds in more northern countries, it either has 
different habits according to locality, or local observers 
have strangely overlooked its peculiarities. The seeds of 
more than thirty species of plants were found stored up, 
none of which were cereals ; but at Hyéres, M.Germain St. 
No, 175—VoL, vu. 
Pierre has observed these latter stored by ants in such 
quantities that he thinks their depredations must cause 
serious loss to cultivators. Thus we have another im- 
portant confirmation of the statements of the old writers, 
The second part of the book gives a very interesting and 
elaborate account of the curious nests of the Trap-Door 
spiders of the south of Europe, of which two new forms 
are described, one of them being constructed by a hitherto 
undescribed species of spider. The nests previously known 
have a hinged door at the upper end of the tubular nest, 
but Mr. Moggridge found another kind with a second door 
lower down, and also one with a lateral chamber the open- 
ing to which, as well as the main tube, is closed by the 
second door. In these nests the lower door is strong and 
fits closely, and can be held fast by the spider on the in- 
side, while the upper door is for concealment only, being 
very thin, but almost always closely resembling the sur- 
rounding surface. In many cases it is overgrown with 
living moss and lichens, and Mr. Moggridge thinks that 
the spider plants or sows the mosses, having found little 
bits of moss stuck on to a newly-made door. A curious 
and instructive observation occurs as to the simple man- 
ner in which a protective adaptation may be brought about 
unconsciously. Having cut away the top of one of these 
nests and thus left the tube exposed on a surface of bare 
earth, the spider made a new door in which it stuck pieces 
of moss from the neighbouring moss-covered bank, thus 
making its nest very conspicuous bythe round patchof green 
on a surface of fresh earth. The simple and natural habit 
of covering the door of the nest with any material that 
grows or lies around it usually leads to concealment, but 
the above example shows that in doing so the insect does 
not consciously work with this object. Even more curious 
is the fact that little spiders only a few days old construct 
nests exactly like those of the parent—tubes excavated in 
the earth, lined with silk and provided with one or two 
doors and lateral passages, as the case may be, but only 
about one-sixth the size. Good reasons are given for 
believing that these small nests are not abandoned, but 
enlarged from time to time as the occupant grows bigger. 
Whether the very young spiders build their nests inde- 
pendently of all teaching or experience is a curious point 
of inquiry to which our author adverts, and as he suggests 
that it might not be very difficult to rear young spiders from 
the egg and place them in conditions favourable for their 
existence, it is to be hoped that he will try the experiment 
and help to throw light on a subject on which we have so 
little positive knowledge. 
The numerous coloured plates, giving full-sized repre- 
sentations of the spiders and their habitations, are very 
carefully drawn, and add greatly to the interest of one of 
the most original and entertaining books on natural his- 
tory we have met with for some, 
ALFRED R, WALLACE 
SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS OF CORNWALL 
Nenia Cornubie. A descriptive essay, illustrative of the 
Sepulchres and Funereal Customs of the early Inhabi- 
tants of Cornwall. By W. Copeland Borlase, B.A., 
F.S.A. (London: Longmans; Truro: Netherton, 1872.) 
EETING with a recent work on any branch of the 
antiquities of Cornwall, by an author bearing the 
t name of Borlase, is so much like falling in with the ancient 
t 
