TRAP-DOOR SPIDER. 



175 



most experienced eye can scarcely detect it. Such a door is to 

 be found guarding the nest of the Trap-door Spiders, several 

 species of which are found scattered over all the warm parts of 

 the earth. A side view of one of these extraordinary nests is 



DOOE OF TRAP- DOOR SPIDER. 



TRAP-DOOR OF COAL-CELLAR. 



given in the accompanying illustration, and on the other side is 

 the common trap-door of our cellars. 



The Spiders which make these extraordinary dwellings 

 generally begin by excavating a nearly perpendicular tunnel in 

 the ground. They line it with a silken web, and construct a 

 door which exactly fits the orifice, and which is bevelled so that 

 it shall not sink too far, and thus betray itself. I have seen and 

 handled one, where the burrow had been sunk among lichens 

 and mosses, and the trap-door of the nest had been most inge- 

 niously covered with the same growths. Although the surface of 

 the slab of earth in which the nest was made is only a few 

 inches square, it is almost impossible to detect the entrance, so 

 admirably do the mosses on the door correspond with those 

 outside it. 



Almost invariably the nest is sunk in the ground, but I have 

 a specimen sent to me from India, in which the Spider must 

 absolutely have carried the clay to a fluted pillar, burrowed in 

 it, and then made its beautiful habitation. The nest and its 

 inhabitant were sent to me by an officer in the 108th Regiment, 

 accompanied by the following letter : — 



" The packet contains a large Spider and the upper portion 

 of its peculiar nest, the history of which is as follows. 



" On the thirtieth of last month (September, 1870), while 

 searching for caterpillars on a bush growing close to one of the 

 pillars of my verandah, which is a very low one, reaching to 

 within a foot of the ground, I saw in part of the chunam 

 masonry at the foot of the pillar what I at first sight took to be 



