TRAP-DOOR-NEST SPIDERS. 



57 



CASE that falls like a flap. It is now placed in the genus Actinopus, 

 ^^" but is better known by the old name Cteniza nidulans, and comes 

 from Jamaica. 



Cteniza fodiens {Cambr.). 



This is a round-bodied blueish spider, from the south of 

 France, which, as already said, makes nests with cork doors. 



Cteniza fodiens 

 (slightly magnified). 



1 ' V : 



Diagram of tube of Cteniza fodiens, or of an allied species. 



More recent observations have shown that there are several 

 species of different genera that make these remarkable structures, 

 an interesting account of which will be found in Mr. Moggndee's 

 recent work on - Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders." From 

 this work it appears that the contrivances of these creatures are 

 more complex than was formerly supposed. The first known 

 piece of ingenuity was that the insect stoppered the hole mto its 

 burrow by a trap-door fitting like a cork, which was loaded with 

 earth on the outside, sufficiently heavy to make it shut of its own 

 weight, a contrivance which facilitates its concealment when 

 mosses, etc., grew on the earth so placed. One of these is here 



