TRAP-DOOR'NEST SPIDERS. 6i 



CASE having been found, that it was not accidental choice of situation, 

 but that it is the regular manner of life of the inhabitant, to make 

 a hole in the bark, and to close it with a door like the bark. But 

 the spider's feelers are not adapted for digging a hole in so hard a 

 material as bark or wood, and from the appearance of the place 

 itself, where the nest that we have seen was made, it seems 

 more probable that the spider had taken possession of the empty 

 cocoon of some moth that, as many do, makes its cocoon in the 

 bark of trees, and had woven a lid to it with silk and fragments 

 of bark ; it may be a habit of this particular trap-door spider to 

 select such situations. 



Since the preceding case was prepared, and the above remarks 

 written, the museum has received from Lady Jardine, relict of the 

 late Sir William Jardine, the celebrated naturalist, the donation of 

 a number of trap-door spiders and their nests, of the kinds found 

 and described by the late Mr. Moggridge, in the neighbourhood of 

 Mentone, Cannes, and other points on the French or Italian 

 littoral of the Mediterranean. As Mr. Moggridge's work has 

 excited a good deal of interest in these creatures, an additional 

 case has been added for their reception. Before describing 

 them, however, it may be desirable to satisfy the reader's curiosity 

 on two points on which it is likely to arise. If he looks at 

 the specimens in this case, he will acknowledge that without the 

 key, which we have added to each, to indicate the position of the 

 trap-door, he would have great difficulty in finding it for himself, 

 even when his field of search is reduced to a couple of inches, and 

 he will naturally ask how in an open country any one could ever 

 detect them ; and his surprise will not be diminished when he is 

 disabused of an erroneous impression, very likely to be created by 

 the specimens of larger exotic trap-doors exhibited in last case. 

 These would lead to the impression that their nests are much 

 larger, and consequently more conspicuous than they actually are 

 in the south of France, and its neighbourhood. The fact is that 

 there, they are often very small, for both young and old spiders 



