254 Transactions. —Z oology. 
Not the result of accident. 
These are all the facts I have to offer on the subject. Other sealed 
nests were found at other times, and some of their trap-doors are in the 
case before’you, but nothing specially different from what is above related 
was observed. I put forward no explanation or theory, but no doubt I shall 
be told, that these are all instances of accidental covering up by other 
spiders, which had placed their excavated dirt heaps on the top of their 
neighbours’ trap-doors, or that they are cases of accidently burying, by the 
slipping of a bank or something of that sort. I may as well say therefore 
at once, to prevent such surmises, that they are quite untenable, as would 
be evident to any one seeing the nests on the ground. Apart altogether 
from the care which I always took to find out if there were any nest near, 
from which the excavated matter could have come, there is no getting over 
the fact, that the trap-doors were always sealed and tied with strings on the 
inside, and that the spider was always, with one exception, hale and hearty 
inside, and that the nests had no other outlet. Also these nests were all on 
level ground, with no bank or place near them from which the soil cover- 
ing them could have accidentally come. No; whatever is the explanation, 
these are inadmissible. Noting a number of sealed up nests, and w tching - 
them at every month of the year, might supply the key, as I feel strongly 
impressed with the idea, that it has something to do, either with their 
hybernating, if they do hybernate, or with their breeding. Unfortunately 
it is only at long intervals that I get the chance of observing them, but 
T would commend this matter to some of our Oamaru natualists for investi-- 
gation. 
Breeding-cocoons and young ones. 
On this subject M. de Walckenaer, as quoted by Moggridge, says that the 
Trap-door Spider attains her maturity im August (corresponding to our: 
February) ; leaves her mother in September (our March), and that she 
lives with the male before the time of laying eggs, and that M. Dorthes has 
many times seen, in the same nest, the male and female with about thirty 
young ones. From the preceding extract from my note-book, it will be 
seen that the only instance in which two spiders were found by me together 
was on the 26th November, and that there was a cocoon of eggs in the same - 
nest, and the nest itself was sealed up. But you will remember that I 
described how I found out the use of the enlargement by seeing a cocoon 
suspended in it. This was on the 9th November. Between those two 
dates, I repeatedly found cocoons of eggs in the nests. Some of the nests 
were sealed up, and some were not, and some had enlargements, and some 
had not. The eggs, however, were always in cocoons of varying sizes, and 
always suspended about a third, or half-way down the nest. In this they 
* 
Sie ei ai AM 
