244 : Transactions. — Zoology. 
out of their holes in the day time. You will remember that my discovery 
of them was caused by my seeing one (a large one), on the ground as I 
rode slowly through a paddock. Repeatedly afterwards, while hunting for 
them, I saw individual spiders outside their nests, and on one occasion, a 
bright sunny-day about noon, I observed three different instances of this. 
On another occasion, my children collected about half-a-dozen in the even- 
ing, all of smallish size, and several young ones. They told me they got 
some of them crawling outside their holes, and some they dug out, but they 
could not distinguish which. They are all in bottles, Nos. 7 and 8. 
Never set their doors ajar. 
Several times, when examining their nests, I have detected them “ peer- 
ing out of their doors,” as described by Moggridge, but on no occasion have 
I ever seen the door “ set ajar for the purpose,’’ or ‘‘ set open in the day- 
time, and the tube empty,’’ as mentioned by Moggridge, and by M. Olivier. 
On every occasion where I saw the spider outside, she immediately on being 
disturbed, ran to her hole, quickly and cleverly lifted wp her door and ran 
in. This is done so nimbly, that you have hardly time to see more than 
the spider disappearing down the hole, and the lid falling flap. They never 
seem to stop when they come to the hole, but glide in between the lid and 
the ground in a moment, down falls the door, and they are out of sight. 
On one occasion my wife saw a spider run into its nest, by quickly and 
cleverly lifting its trap-door and running in. She called to me, and while 
we were both watching it, the trap-door opened again slightly, and the legs 
of the spider became visible between the door and the ground, but evidently 
in consequence of seeing us, the cunning creature ran down its hole again, 
and the door sprang into its place, and though we watched it some time, 
and tried to get it to show itself, it did not again hazard the experiment. 
Nor have I ever observed anything approaching to what Moggridge 
describes, on the authority of Mr. Hansard, about a species inhabiting the 
island of Formosa, in the China Sea, of these spiders “staring at any one 
who might approach,” still less have I ever seen amongst the hundreds of 
nests I have observed, anything like what the same author mentions, on the 
authority of Lady Barker, about some black Trap-door Spiders, which are 
common about Paramatta, near Sydney, Australia, “that the eye of the 
passer-by was attracted by the open doors which fell over backwards when 
the spider made her exit.’ In fact I think you will agree with me, that 
from the construction of the specimens of nests now before you, it is 
physically impossible for the trap-doors “ to fall over backwards,”’ or even 
to remain ‘‘ set open,” without something holding them. No doubt the 
statements quoted have been correctly observed, of the particular species in 
Oe ee emanate Ere AeN NE ATG 
