THia WEST AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 75 



[Uea.i bj Miss Monks, before the Historical Society of Southern California. 



TRAP-BOOR SPIDERS. 



The underground life of Southern California is more remark- 

 able than that of the East. The treeless and stoneless character 

 of much of the country, drives many small animals to ingenious 

 expedients to escape from enemies, and reduces them to make- 

 shifts unknown to their more fortunate kindred. 



Winged creatures are scarce. One looks in vain for the great 

 variety of bees, butterflies, and birds that enliven the Eastern sum- 

 mer and make every wayside patch of flowers and thistle thicket a 

 living panorama of color, motion and song. Here .there are few 

 homes and hiding places. Strong-pinioned hawks and buzzards 

 can wing their way to distant forests; man-loving linnets are 

 secure and happy in orchard and garden, but timid folk must seek 

 homes on, or under the turf, or hide in far off canyons. 



To a person used to the common fact that 'foxes have holes, 

 and the birds of the air have nests,' there is a neVer-ending inter- 

 est in squirrel burrows where gopher-snake and rattlesnake and owl 

 and squirrel families blend together promiscuously. 



Imagine the loneliness and homesickness and disgust of the 

 first emigrant owl and his family, on these smooth foothills with 

 no hollow tree or friendly stone wall near, when they found they 

 must go down to the dark abode of the squirrel and be a compan- 

 ion of the snakes! Peace and concord and the sweet amenities of 

 polite society may reign over these incongruous troglodytes, but 

 no man knoweth, and the interested parties are becomingly reti- 

 cent. Imagination alone can furnish another solution of the 

 problem. 



Other unfailing curiosities are the two large spiders, the Trap^ 

 door and the 'Tarantula', and the peculiar nests of the Trap-door 

 spider. 



So much confusion prevails about the two species and there 

 are so many wonderful stories told about their instincts and fe- 

 rocity, that it is perhaps wortk while to collect all the authentic 

 information possible on the subject. It is necessary to under- 

 stand a little about the general structure of spiders to know 

 how these differ from their relatives. 



Spiders differ from insects, such as flies, beetles and butter- 

 flies, in having four instead of three pairs of legs, the head and 

 chest blended together in one piece called cephalo-thorax ; the 

 large rounded abdomen without joints; the breathing organs as 

 pouches and also air tubes, and the end of the body furnished 

 with organs for spinning silk. The air pouches, called pulmoix*- 



