534 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



quote here all the observations made by competent and veracious 

 authorities as to the beautiful adaptations effected by these 

 Spiders, by which the lid or door of their burrows is made to 

 perfectly assimilate with the surrounding surface. Gillies, de- 

 scribing the habits of a New Zealand species, writes : — " The 

 evidences of thought, ingenuity, and reason are displayed in the 

 selection of the particular materials used in special places ; in 

 the calculation of the probabilities of certain contingencies hap- 

 pening; and in the apparently careless arrangement of both living 

 and dead matter, so as to make what is in reality the highest art 

 appear to be the result of natural and ordinary circumstances." 

 In some cases there is " a plant of green grass . . . planted 

 artificially, and growing on the lid." In other cases " you will 

 find clay on the outside of the lid, plastered and smooth, or 

 possibly with an imitation crack, introduced apparently at ran- 

 dom." In others, again, "the skilful artist brings to his aid all 

 the taste and knowledge of the practical gardener — selects plants 

 suited for his purpose, brings them from a distance, and actually 

 transplants them to the top of his trap-door with astonishingly 

 natural variety and arrangement " ; or " you will find mosses of 

 various hues and colours growing green, and sometimes brown 

 and dead, upon the lid " ; or sometimes *' this tiny pasture is 

 brilliantly ornamented with parti-coloured patches of lichens," 

 or " sprigs of lycopods, ferns or heaths, veronicas, and white- 

 berry plants are introduced to correspond with the bolder herbage 

 around " ; or, " if the common white tussock is the prevailing 

 vegetation in the locality, . . . the dead bits (of that kind) of 

 grass are woven adroitly into the trap-door or round its mouth, 

 so as to deceive the most practised eye," &c* Moggridge found 

 a nest in a plant which had been brought to him which was quite 

 covered on the surface with moss, and the moss grew on the 

 surface of the door itself, and looked exactly like that growing all 

 round.! Livingstone describes a nest of which "the outside 

 looks exactly like the surrounding surface of the ground, so that 

 when the door is shut it is impossible to find the nest. The hole 

 can therefore only be seen when the inhabitant has gone out and 



* Quoted by W. Lauder Lindsay, ' Mind in the Lower Animals,' vol. i. 

 p. 528. 



f ' Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders,' p. 97. 



