(il 



tightly into it, like a cork into a bottle. The cover is made of earth fastened together with 

 threads, and is lined, like the tube, with silk, and fastened by a thick hinge of silk at one 

 side, Fig. 27, B. When the cover is closed it looks exactly like the ground about it. 

 The spider, when alarmed, holds on the inside of the door with its mandibles, and the two 

 front pairs of feet ; while the third and fourth pairs of legs are pressed out against the 

 walls of the tube, and hold the spider down so firmly that it is impossible to raise the 

 cover without tearing it. 



Fig. 27. 



Trap-door nests : A, nest of Atypus ; B, nest with thick door ; C, nest with thin door ; D, branched nest ; 

 E, nest with two doors ; F, branched nest with two doors ; G, nest with two branches. 



One of the European species, described by Moggridge, makes a thin lid to its tube, 

 and lets it rest on the top of the tube, Fig. 27, C, covering it with leaves, moss, or 

 whatever happens to be near at hand, so that it is not easily distinguished. 



A second species differs by constructing two or three inches down the tube another 

 door, Fig. 27, E, hanging to one side of the tube when not in use; but, when one tries to 

 dig the spider out from above, she pushes up the lower door, so that it looks as if it were 

 the bottom of an empty tube. 



Another species digs a branch obliquely upward from the middle of the tube, closed 

 at the junction by a hanging-door, which, when pushed upward, can also be used to close 

 the main tube, Fig. 27, F. What use the spider makes of such a complicated nest, nobody 

 knows from observation ; but Mr. Moggridge supposes that when an enemy, a parasitic 

 fly, for instance, comes into the mouth of the tube, the spider stops up the passage by 

 pressing up against the lower door ; but, if this is not enough, it dodges into the branch, 

 draws the door to behind it, and leaves the intruder to amuse himself in the empty tube. 

 The branch is sometimes carried up to the surface, where it is closed only by a few threads ; 

 so that, in case of siege, the spider could escape, and leave the whole nest to the enemy. 



In these nests the spiders live most of the time, coming out at night, and some species 

 in the daytime, to catch insects, which they carry into the tube and eat. The eggs are 

 laid in the tube, and the young are hatched and live there till they are able to* go alone, 

 when they go out and dig little holes for themselves. As the spider grows larger the 

 hole is made wider, and the cover enlarged by adding a layer of earth and silk : so that 

 another cover is made up of a number of layers, one over the other, on top of the original 

 little cover. 



Moggridge relates (page 118) how a Nemesia Meridionalis constructed a trap-door in 

 captivity, after he had placed it on a flower-pot full of earth, in which he had made a 

 cylindrical hole. " She quickly disappeared into this hole, and during the night following 

 she made a thin web over the aperture, into which she wove any materials that came to 

 hand. The trap-door at this stage resembled a rudely constructed, horizontal, geometrical 

 web, attached by two or three threads to the earth at the mouth of the hole, while in this 

 web^were caught the bits of earth, roots, moss, leaves, etc., which the spider had thrown 



