588 : A new T; rap-door Spider. 
these lines of growth in a door made by an adult spider. There 
is no Such regularity. Indeed, this last door was made of about 
a dozen very large pellets of clay which, being very plastic, the 
spider was able to press each pellet into a sheet of considerable 
dimensions, 
It is to be regretted that Mr. Moggridge did not have the 
opportunity of observing the manner of enlargement of trap 
doors made by the spiders which he studied, or that he did not 
offer some theory as an explanation. If the particles are cemented 
to the edge, it would be quite natural that the species of spider in 
my possession once made its door by first spinning a web across 
the mouth of the tube, and then weaving into it other material, as 
in the case of N. meridionalis, and that the habit, followed through 
life and successive generations, of making additions to the door 
by cementing particles to the edge, finally became so fixed that 
this mode of making additions to it became the permanent habit 
~ — and type of construction of the trap door from the foundation! 
T -The rapidity, ease and intelligence manifested in this method of 
~ building up the door, piece by piece, certainly indicates a higher 
development of instinctive power. A perfect and neatly fitting 
and swinging door made in 1% hours! 
_ When I took the spider from her nest it was necessary to 
-remove nearly all of the soil from the jar and take her from the 
lower end of the tube, as all efforts to attract her from the nest 
failed. As the soil was very loose and the nest not long made, 
the walls of the tube collapsed. In ten days the spider was 
~ returned to the nest. Though the trap door was capable of being 
_ used, and seemed to satisfy the spider’s idea of the * fitness of 
things,” it was in a very dilapidated condition. This agrees with 
` what Mr. Moggridge says of the reluctance manifested by gee 
= to abandon an old nest. The examples cited by him are, B 
_ adoor be pinned back during the night, a second door will be 
_ made; that if the nest be covered with earth, the tube will be 
oh prolonged to the surface of the superimposed earth afid a new 
~ trap door will be made; and that in some cases nests become 10- 
verted, when a door being made at the now uppe f 
tube, the nest will have a door at each end! The conduct of my - 
spider under another condition farther illustrates this fea ' a 4 
Wishing to observe the habit of the spider, if possible, while a 
*Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders, pp, 121 and 122. es | 
r end of the — l 
