1873.] 303 [Emerton, 
Section of Entomology. February 26, 1873. 
Mr. C. 8. Minot in the chair. Nine members present. 
Mr. B. P. Mann was elected Secretary of the Section. 
Mr. J. H. Emerton exhibited a species of Mygale from 
California, in its trap-door nest. The spider was living, 
although it had taken no food for six months. 
Mr. Emerton described the manner in which the cover of the nest 
is held down. ‘The spider faces the hinge, and fastens the fangs of 
its mandibles into the cover, also taking hold with the claws of the 
palpi, and the first two pair of legs. The third pair of legs, which 
' are very strong and have their tarsi spined, and the last and longest 
pair are bent outward against the tube. The spider seems to remain 
most of the time in this position. When an attempt to open the 
cover is made, the spider resists with great power, and as the cover 
is cradually lifted, first withdraws its mandibles, and then its legs, the 
longest last. Finally, when nearly drawn out of the nest, the spider 
lets go its hold and drops back. 
Mr. Emerton also described the spinning organs of spiders, 
and referred particularly to their structure in those making a 
curled web, —the Ciniflonide of Blackwall. 
In front of the first pair of spinnerets in this family there is a pair 
of small organs, the nature of which has been disputed. Blackwall 
(Linn. Trans., X vit, p. 223) states that the spiders draw silk from 
them. ‘Mr. Emerton had, by dissection, found these organs provided 
with external tubes, as in the other spinnerets, into which ducts 
passed from the abdomen. He had been unable to trace these ducts 
to their end. The spider first spins an ordinary web, which it then | 
covers with a tangled and curled thread. In spinning this, one of the 
hind legs is placed across the abdomen, so as to cover the forward 
spinnerets, the tarsus, which is very spiny, resting on the opposite leg. 
By arapid motion of this leg the thread is drawn out, tangled and 
attached to the web. 
A fine collection of European Coleoptera, presented by 
Mr. Ernest Papendiek, was exhibited. The collection con- 
