lie HUMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



ever, it is not very venomous, for it is actually eaten by sheep fis 

 they graze. 



Of all the burrowing spiders, however, none is so admirable 

 an excavator as the Trap-door Spider of Jamaica, and none 

 displays so much ingenuity in the arrangement of its burrow. 

 Specimens of both the tunnel and the spider are now before me, 

 and it is impossible to inspect them without admiration. When 

 removed from the earth which surrounded it, the silken tube is 

 seen to be double, the outer portion being thick, deeply stained 

 of a ruddy brown, and separated into a great number of flakes, 

 lying loosely upon each other. This outer covering is so thick, 

 harsh, and crumpled, that it looks more like the rough bark of a 

 tree than a spider's web, and its true nature would hardly be 

 recognised even by the touch. The exterior of a common wasp's 

 nest bears some resemblance to this part of the tube. Beneath 

 this covering is an inner layer of a very different character. 

 This is uniformly smooth to the eye, and of a silken softness to 

 the touch. It is but slightly adherent in places to the outer 

 tube, and can be separated without any difficulty and without 

 injuring the one or the other. 



The texture of the interior surface is quite unlike that of the 

 inner or outer tube, being nearly white and of a smoothness and 

 consistency much resembling the rough and unsized paper on 

 which continental books are usually printed. It is curiously 

 stiff also, and is so formed that no one who saw it for the first 

 time would be likely to guess at its real character. The micro- 

 scope, however, reveals its true character at once. If the interior 

 of the tube be submitted to a moderately low power, say from 

 thirty to forty diameters, a curious sight is presented to the 

 observer. The surface looks like very rough felt, covered with 

 little prominences, and composed of threads twisted together 

 without the least apparent order. The threads are very coarse, 

 in comparison to ordinary spider-web, and seem to be stiff, as if 

 covered with size or gum. 



The entrance of the tube is guarded by the " trap-door," from 

 which the spider takes its name. This is a flap of the same 

 substance as the tube, circular in shape, so as to fit the orifice 

 with perfect accuracy, and attached to the tube by a tolerably 

 wide hinge, so that when it closes it does not fall to either side, 



