TRAP-DOOR-NEST SPIDERS, 



59 



CASE the other. Mr. Moggridge has since shown that some of the 

 species in the south of Europe, near Mentone, carry their 

 ingenuity much further. One species there named, Nemesia 



Diagram of tube of Nemesia eleanora. 



I '- 



Diagram of tube of Nemesia 

 meridionalis. 



nieridionahs, makes a tube into the ground hke the others,, 

 and with the usual trap-door, but a short way down it makes 

 another shorter tube sloping obliquely for a short distance 

 upwards and downwards and at the junction of this it places 

 another trap-door, only in this instance less solid and more 

 flexible, and like a hanging curtain. It is, moreover, so con- 

 structed as to suit the convexity of the tube in which it lies, 

 so that, when in its natural position, shutting the entrance 

 of the second tube there is no appearance of the door at 

 all. The eye on looking in penetrates to the bottom, and sees 

 apparently nothing but an empty tube, whilst all the time the 

 spider may be reposing securely in the second tube protected 

 from view by the concave door. But that is not all ; the spider 

 can, if it chooses, push this inner door to, so as to close the main 



