NOTES ON NESTS OF SOME TRAPDOOR SPIDERS AND THE 
NEST OF CALOMMATA TRANSVAALICUS HWTT. 
By G. van Dam and Austin Roberts. 
The following notes relate to the nests of the various trapdoor spiders, 
which are recorded or described by Mr. John Hewitt in the foregoing 
article. We started studying these creatures at the instance of Mr. Hewitt. 
At first we discovered their abodes by mere chance, but experience taught 
us more successful modes of search which we briefly describe by way of 
introduction so that other workers may receive the benefits of our 
experience. 
The first nests discovered were those of Stasimopus robertsi at Rosslyn. 
A single specimen was turned out when a moletrap was being set, and in 
a subsequent special excursion a great many nests were discovered. All 
of them were located by looking for faintly marked rings in more or less 
sandy patches between tufts of grass. To show how circumscribed was 
our knowledge at that time, we may state that we found no other species 
although several were subsequently found to occur there. Then we found 
a few nests at the Zoutpan, twenty-six miles north-north-west from 
Pretoria, representing Galeosoma 'pallidum and Idiops pretoriae, besides a 
species of Lycosid. Having discovered the Galeosoma type of nest, thus 
enlarging our experience of spider architecture, we renewed our search 
in the immediate neighbourhood of Pretoria. Then a number of nests 
of the two species (Stasimopus and Galeosoma ) were discovered at Mayville, 
and during several expeditions to that place, careful search disclosed the 
fact, that there were more species there, than these two, for we discovered 
the peculiar nest of Pelmatorycter pretoriae , with the first part of the tube 
driven just below the surface, and carrying a wafer * lid, another 
Pelmatorycter (cp. brevipalpis ) with its peculiar Y-shaped nest, and Idiops 
gunningi, with a short tube and thin cork lid. We subsequently extended 
these excursions to the whole of the flat areas in the neighbourhood of 
Pretoria, but beyond extending our knowledge of the nests of Acanthodon 
transvaalensis and the two species of Idiops, little new in method of search 
was adopted. So far we had searched for nests only by carefully 
scrutinizing the ground in open places. During an expedition to Roode- 
plaat, on the Pienaars River, we encountered considerable difficulty in 
finding nests, perhaps owing to recent heavy rains having obliterated all 
trace of them, and the spiders having apparently not troubled to come 
out in the meantime. For two days we searched without much success, 
only a few of the commoner species being found ; but, quite accidently, 
* We are employing the terms used by Moggridge in his well-known work, etc, 
