and different sizes, of wood-lice (_Oniscus_), and of earwigs
(_Forficula_) in the nests of _N. Eleanora_ and _N. Manderstjernæ_,
and the wings of a large green field-bug in the nest of the former.
I have only once detected traces of food in the dwellings of
_Cteniza Moggridgii_, and these consisted of minute fragments of the
integuments of insects, none of which were certainly recognisable,
though I believe that they partly consisted of the coats of a small
species of ant. The rarity or complete absence of the wings of
insects which habitually fly rather than crawl on the ground, and
my inability to discover either snares or any evidence that these
spiders ever leave the nest, lead me to believe that they live (at
any rate from October to May) by dragging into their nests any
insects which approach within reach.
Ants, earwigs, beetles, and wood-lice are precisely the very
creatures which would fall a prey to the spider without obliging her
to leave her nest, and it is accordingly their remains that we find.
On one occasion, however, at Montpellier, my sister detected _N.
cæmentaria_ in the act of devouring a fair-sized caterpillar, to
obtain which there is some reason to think she must have left her
nest. We were out together on the 8th of May last (1874), hunting for
the new wafer nests of that district, under the kind guidance of M.
Lichtenstein, when my sister called our attention to a caterpillar,
the body of which partly projected from the tube of a cork nest (_N.
cæmentaria_), and prevented the lid from closing.
On closer examination we found that the spider was in the act of
devouring the caterpillar, and had already sucked out the juices from
the anterior portion, while the middle and posterior parts of the
body still resisted, and the legs clung tenaciously to the lip of the
nest.
M. Lichtenstein told us that this larva, which when entire must have
been rather more than an inch long, was that of the mullein moth
(_Cucullia verbasci_).
It was not full grown, and as there were no mullein plants within
some two feet of the nest and this caterpillar will not leave the
plant on which it feeds unless compelled, it would seem as if the
spider must have gone afield in order to capture it. It is possible,
nevertheless, that the caterpillar may have fallen within reach of
the spider when blown off the mullein leaves by the wind.
I have, unfortunately, but few details to give of the nocturnal
habits of the trap-door spiders. It would appear, however, that they
are more active by night than by day, and that it is more common
to find their doors ajar at night, with the spiders posted on the
look-out at the narrow opening. This is borne out by my observations
on captive spiders, to which I shall allude shortly.
When at Hyères on the 11th of May, 1873, the evening being very
warm and a bright moon shining, I went at 8:30 P.M. with my father
and sister to see what the spiders would be doing on a hedge bank
where we had previously marked five cork and eight wafer nests. The
moonlight did not fall upon this spot, but I was provided with a
lantern, and by its light the nests at first appeared to be tightly
closed, but we soon perceived first one and then another with the
door slightly raised, ready to close on the smallest alarm, whether
from a footfall or from the flickering of the lamp. When the light of
the lantern was steady it did not appear to frighten the spiders in
the least, even when brought to within a few inches of the door,[148]
and this enabled me to watch them very closely. On either side of
the raised door of one of the wafer nests I could see the feet of
the spider projecting, and just at that moment I caught sight of a
beetle close at hand, feeding on the topmost spray of some small
plant below. Using every precaution, I contrived to gather the spray
without shaking off the beetle, and gradually pushed it nearer and
nearer to the nest. When it almost touched the lip of the nest the
door flew open, and the spider snatched at the beetle and dragged it
down below.
[Footnote 148: This had been observed before both by my father and Mr.
Dillon when watching the trap-door spiders at night at Mentone.]
For a few seconds the door remained tightly closed, and then, to our
great surprise, was suddenly opened again, and the beetle was cast
alive and unharmed out of the nest. I immediately secured the insect,
which proved to be the common _Chrysomela Banksii_.[149]
[Footnote 149: I am indebted to Mr. F. Smith for the name.]
I cannot doubt that this beetle was distasteful in some way to the
spider, for it was neither so large nor so powerful as many beetles
the remains of which I have found in the spiders' nests, and,
besides, it did not escape from the nest, but was distinctly rejected
by its captor.
This shows that this spider does not know instinctively what insects
to reject and what to take.
This little episode was scarcely ended when I espied a wood-louse
(_Oniscus_) walking down the bank, not far from another of these
wafer nests. By a little guidance I managed so to turn its course
that this unsuspicious crustacean went straight to the very point I
wished, and made as if it would walk over the spider's door; but no
sooner was it well within reach than, quick as thought, the spider
clutched it and dragged it in. No rejection followed on this capture,
and, though I could not actually witness the conclusion of this
adventure, I do not doubt that it ended in a tragedy and a supper.
In these two cases, as in all those previously noted, the spiders did
not leave the nest nor allow the door to close behind them, but kept
it propped up on the abdomen and hindmost pair of legs. In this way
the act of seizing their prey, and that of withdrawing into the nest,
were almost simultaneous.
In no case did we see any of these spiders out of their nests, and
their behaviour by night appeared to be the same as by day, only that
they were bolder and more on the alert.
The spiders in the cork nests (_N. Moggridgii_) resisted our attempts
to raise their doors just as rigorously as in the daytime.
All the spiders which I have kept in captivity have shown themselves
more active at night than during the day, and I imagine that
experience has taught them that fewer of their enemies are then
abroad, while ants, beetles, wood-lice, and other creatures upon
which they prey are quite as nocturnal as themselves.
I brought back to England some young cork and wafer spiders from
Hyères, and one adult cork (_N. Moggridgii_). The latter was placed
in a small tin box, with moss and a little earth at the bottom, on
the evening of May the 10th, 1873, and by next morning she had made
a silk tube through the moss, carrying up earth from below for the
purpose of strengthening its walls on the outside. On the 13th of May
the tube was furnished with a perfect door.
I hoped that this spider might lay eggs in her prison,[150] and
therefore broke up her nest from time to time after my return to
London in order to search for them. Between the 27th of May (when her
nest had been transferred into a box of earth) and the 6th of October
I destroyed her dwelling four times, and after each demolition
she furnished the cylindrical hole which I bored for her with a
lid, having thus made five doors since her capture. I got no eggs
however, though the spider appeared in perfect health.
[Footnote 150: Strange to say, though I have opened so many nests
at different seasons of the year, and found young apparently quite
recently hatched, I have never been able to find the eggs of a
trap-door spider.]
Neither this spider nor the true _N. cæmentaria_ of Montpellier
appears to have any idea of digging a hole when placed on soft earth
if they are adult; and the same thing is true of _N. Manderstjernæ_
and _N. Eleanora_, but the young of all these spiders readily
excavate nests for themselves.
I have once seen a nearly full grown, and probably adult, _Cteniza
Moggridgii_ make a perfect tube and furnish it with a moveable door
in a single night when confined under gauze on moist earth, but this
is the only instance (except that of _Cteniza Californica_, recorded
above) in which I have known an adult trap-door spider excavate or
attempt to do so.
These _Ctenizas_ seem to be peculiarly able to adapt themselves
to circumstances, for two young ones, which I sent by post to M.
Lucas at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in little wide-mouthed,
cylindrical, blue glass bottles, not only lined the bottles with silk
but also closed them at the mouth with a door fitting accurately
into a bevelled lip, in the manufacture of both of which fragments
of moss, the only material at their disposal, were used in place
of earth.[151] It is curious to see how quickly the young trap-door
spiders, both of the cork and wafer kinds, when taken from the
nest of the mother, will make their own perfect little dwellings
in captivity, and I have known them construct tube and door within
fifteen hours.
[Footnote 151: M. H. Lucas, in _Bull. des Séances de la Soc. Entom. de
Fr._ No. 27 (1874), p. 101.]
I have watched the proceedings of the young spiders, when taken from
the mother's nest, in the following species: _Nemesia Manderstjernæ_,
_N. Eleanora_, _N. congener_, and _N. Moggridgii_, the three first
constructing wafer, and the last a cork nest. All of these very young
spiders will excavate their own tubes and bring out pellets of the
earth, which closely resemble those carried out from their galleries
by the ants.
As has been stated before, the young brood, while still in the
mother's nest, will often comprise individuals of different
sizes, and though the majority are no larger than the baby-spider
represented at Fig. B 2, Pl. IX., _Ants and Spiders_, some may
occasionally be found that are fully twice as large.
The little nests which they make in captivity vary accordingly in
size. Thus, out of sixteen young taken from the mother's nest (_N.
Eleanora_), eleven, three days after capture, had made nests in the
earth of a flower-pot, and the wafer doors of six of these nests
measured 2 lines across, of four 2-1/2 lines, and of one 3 lines. The
first nests of another similar lot of young _Eleanora_ spiders had
wafer doors measuring respectively 2, 2-1/2, 2-1/2, 3 and 3 lines. In
another case when I captured fourteen young (the entire brood found
in the nest of the mother, _N. Manderstjernæ_), after the lapse of
five days every one of them had made a nest, but these were smaller
and more uniform, ten of the wafer doors measuring 2 lines across,
one 1-1/2, and one 2-1/2.
These little spiders need to be kept constantly supplied with flies,
which should be killed and placed near their nests; they are often
so greedy that they will attempt to drag a house-fly entire down
their tubes for which it is much too large, when the door is pushed
open, and the fly remains sticking in the entrance to the nest with
its legs up in the air. One may even feed these spiders oneself by
approaching carefully and, without causing any vibration, pushing the
fly, placed on the end of a pencil, within reach of the spider.
I have given my reasons before (_Ants and Spiders_, p. 127) for
believing that the trap-door spiders do not as a rule desert
their nests, but enlarge them from time to time to meet their own
requirements of growth; showing, by a comparison of the measurements
of the doors of eight nests in April with those of the same nests in
the following October, that all had increased in size.
Subsequent observations have confirmed this; I find that the young
spiders taken from the mother's nest enlarge their nests in captivity
in a precisely similar way.
Thus, for example, the wafer doors of three young _Eleanora_ spiders,
made within a few days after their removal from the mother's nest
on February 20th, 1873, and first measured on February 28th, had
increased between that date and Nov. 29th following from 2 to 4
lines, 2-1/2 to 4 lines, and 2-1/2 to 6 lines respectively.
It is unfortunate that the male and female spiders are
undistinguishable when very young, as it would be interesting to
know whether the males construct nests before they take to their
adult life, during which they roam from place to place and hide under
stones.
In one case fourteen young spiders, forming this entire family taken
with a female _N. Manderstjernæ_, made nests; so that unless all of
these were females, we have evidence here to prove that the males do
commence life by building nests for themselves.
I kept the male _Cteniza Moggridgii_, for ten days on damp earth in
captivity, but he made no attempt to excavate or spin, and wandered
restlessly about, scarcely touching the flies[152] with which I
supplied him.
[Footnote 152: I habitually fed my captive spiders with common
house-flies, and it was curious to see how entirely the latter were
wanting in any instinctive fear of even the largest spiders. They
would creep between the spiders' legs, causing them to start as
if electrified, and frequently it was not until the flies, after
repeating this annoyance several times, actually walked up to and
almost touched the fangs of the spider, that they were punished for
their ignorance and presumption.]
Seeing this I could not venture to prolong his captivity, as I feared
to risk injuring a specimen which was quite unique and which there
was little likelihood of my being able to replace. It is rather
curious that M. Simon should also have found one male, and one
only, of the closely-related _Ct. fodiens_ of Corsica, and that his
specimen should be, like mine, the only one known.
Bearing in mind the curious problems which arise as to the affinities
of the flora and fauna of the Alpes Maritimes with that of Corsica,
the fact that the species of _Cteniza_ which is found at Mentone,
though allied to, is yet distinct from the insular species, gains a
new interest.
We ask ourselves whether the Corsican species sprang from that of the
Alpes Maritimes, or _vice versâ_; or again, whether both diverged
in remote times from a common ancestor. Questions such as these
cannot be answered at present, but I hope the day may come when the
geographical distribution of the various existing forms of life will
be traced with sufficient accuracy to enable us to follow on the
map the lines along which affinity travels; and thus point out at
once the probable relationship between two given forms, and also the
route by which they reached their present stations. Records of local
varieties, and the careful discrimination between forms which have
small but permanent points of difference, thus acquire an importance
which they would not otherwise possess.
The geographical distribution of trap-door spiders is of peculiar
interest on account of the sedentary habits maintained during
life by the females. Most animals are capable of travelling long
distances, or of being accidentally transported from place to place
in such a way that colonies are frequently established far away from
the parent settlement, and we are left in the dark as to whence
they came and who are their nearest relations. But, in the case of
spiders inhabiting true trap-door nests, this is not so; they begin
life immediately on leaving the parent nest by making homes for
themselves near at hand which they will not desert, and there is no
likelihood of their being accidentally carried from place to place
unless occasionally by running water. Thus it happens that whenever
we find the same trap-door spider at two distant localities, we may
feel tolerably sure that the species has travelled from one to the
other by gradual extension, and that, either now or in times past, it
occupied all the intervening country.
For instance, we find _Nemesia Eleanora_ at Mentone, and again at
Cannes, while it has not yet been detected at Nice, Antibes, nor any
other intermediate point; but according to this hypothesis, this
species either does actually live, or has done so formerly, along
the whole intervening line. I will now enumerate the species alluded
to in the preceding pages and indicate briefly the habitats which
they are known with certainty to occupy.
I. _Atypus piceus_, Sulzer (ex Simon). The builder of the tubular
nest the silk lining of which is figured at A in Pl. XIII. It is
stated by M. Simon[153] to be common in all the centre, east, and west
of France, but it remains doubtful whether this exact form is found
in England or not, the true characters and habits of the English
species being still uncertain.
[Footnote 153: l.c. sup., p. 183.]
II. _Cyrtauchenius elongatus_, Simon, constructing the funnel type of
nest. It inhabits the neighbourhood of Fez in Morocco.
III. _Cteniza Moggridgii_, Cambridge (formerly described under the
name of _Ct. fodiens_[154]), one of the many builders of a nest of
the cork type; I have hitherto found this spider only at Mentone and
San Remo. It will probably be discovered in shady valleys in the
neighbourhood of Nice.
[Footnote 154: _Ants and Spiders_, p. 89.]
IV. _Ct. fodiens_, Camb. (_Ct. Sauvagii_, Rossi ex Simon): large nest
of cork type; inhabits Corsica. It has been said that the species
found near Pisa (_Ct. Sauvagii_) is the same as that which is so
common in Corsica, but it is desirable to have further confirmation
of this.
V. _Ct. Californica_, Camb.--Large nest of cork type. Found near
Visalia, about 350 miles south of San Francisco, by Mr. G. Treadwell.
VI. _Nemesia cæmentaria_, Latr.--Nest of cork type. Only known with
certainty to inhabit the neighbourhood of Montpellier.
VII. _N. Moggridgii_, Camb. (formerly described under the name of _N.
cæmentaria_, Latr.[155])--Nest of cork type; is found at San Remo,
Mentone, Cannes, Hyères, and Marseilles. Its range probably extends
some distance to the eastwards, but I doubt whether it does so
towards the west, for there I think it likely that it will be found
to be replaced by the typical _cæmentaria_.
[Footnote 155: _Ants and Spiders_, p. 92.]
VIII. _N. Simoni_, Camb.--Nest of the single-door unbranched wafer
type, discovered at Bordeaux in May, 1874.
IX. _N. suffusa_, Camb.--Nest of single-door branched wafer type,
discovered at Montpellier in May, 1873.
X. _N. Eleanora_, Camb.--Nest of double-door unbranched wafer type;
is found at San Remo, Mentone, Cannes, Vaucluse near Avignon. M.
Simon says[156] he has also found it at Digne, in the Basses Alpes.
[Footnote 156: E. Simon, _Aranéides nouveaux du Midi de l'Europe_, in
"Mém. Soc. Roy. Sc. de Liège," 2^{me}. ser. tom. v. p. 30.]
XI. _N. congener_, Camb.--Nest of double-door branched wafer type;
discovered at Hyères in May, 1873.
XII. _N. Manderstjernæ_, Koch, in Ausserer (formerly described under
the name of _N. meridionalis_, Costa).[157]--Nest of double-door,
branched, cavity wafer type; is found at San Remo, Bordighera,
Mentone, Nice, Cannes, and Hyères (apparently very rare at the
last-named place).
[Footnote 157: _Ants and Spiders_, p. 101.]
XIII. _N. meridionalis_, Costa.--Structure of nest doubtful (see
description in _Ants and Spiders_, p. 138). Found near Naples and
in Ischia. M. Simon has discovered a spider in Corsica which he
considers the same as that described by M. Costa under the name
of _meridionalis_, but it seems desirable, in order thoroughly to
establish this conclusion, that specimens of the spiders and their
nests from these distant habitats should be compared together.
We can scarcely suppose that the real geographical distribution of
the above-named twelve species is as restricted as it would appear to
be from the above enumeration, and there is little doubt, I think,
that many more habitats will be added in time. Indeed, our knowledge
of the habits and distribution of these spiders can only as yet be
said to be in its infancy, the whole subject being, for the most
part, new and untrodden ground.
But, it may be asked, what are the chances in the future for the
discovery of undescribed spiders and types of nests: and what reward
of this kind may the travelling naturalist expect in order to
compensate him for the time and pains which such a search demands,
and which must divert him in a great measure from making other
collections?
The reply is not doubtful.
Europe alone, most probably, contains many trap-door spiders the
specific characters and habits of which are at present unknown; and
as for the warmer regions of other parts of the globe, we only know
enough to lead us to surmise that still stranger and more startling
discoveries await us there.
Dr. L. Koch's description of the very remarkable branched-wafer
nest from Australia, alluded to above (p. 217), and the fragmentary
specimens of giant cork-nests from the same country exhibited at
the British Museum, give us a hint of what the Antipodes will some
day reveal to us; while a stray allusion to a trap-door nest found
near Lake Dilolo, in Southern Africa, by Livingstone,[158] affords
an indication of their existence in another quarter of the globe.
Hitherto but little importance has been attached by naturalists to
the study of the nests of trap-door spiders, but a knowledge of their
structure is often of the greatest assistance, and will, I venture to
predict, be found to afford a clue leading to the discovery of many
new species; for it not unfrequently happens that, while two spiders
appear so much alike as to pass for representatives of the same
species, their nests are totally dissimilar and proclaim them, as in
fact they are, quite distinct from one another. For an example of
this we have only to turn to the seven species of _Nemesia_, treated
of in the foregoing pages, of which six construct dissimilar nests,
and only two, building nests of the cork type, make them alike,
though the general resemblance between the spiders themselves is
extraordinarily close. Thus far, indeed, it will be seen that no two
distinct species of European trap-door spider make wafer nests of the
same type, each kind of wafer nest having its own peculiar spider.
[Footnote 158: "A large reddish spider (_Mygale_), named by the
natives 'sclàli,' runs about with great velocity. Its nest is most
ingeniously covered with a hinged cover or door, about the size of a
shilling, the inner face of which is of a pure white silky substance
like paper, while the outer one is coated with earth precisely like
that in which the hole is made, so that when it is closed it is
quite impossible to detect the situation of the nest. Unfortunately
the cavity for breeding is never seen except when the owner is out,
and has left the door open behind her."--_Dr. Livingstone_, _from_
"_Popular Accounts of Travels in South Africa_," chap. xvii. p. 221.]
This strikes me as a very curious fact, and I await with interest the
discovery of new species of wafer-building spiders in order to learn
whether this will continue to hold good or not.
That such discoveries will be made I entertain no doubt; indeed, I
have reason to believe that, even at Mentone, where perhaps more
pairs of eyes have been at work searching for trap-door spiders than
anywhere else, new species still remain to be detected. In April,
1873, the surface door of a wafer-nest together with a very small
portion of the tube was brought to me from the summit of the Aiguille
mountain, near Mentone. I was greatly surprised to learn that a
trap-door spider could live in such a situation, for the earth on
that plateau, which has an elevation of 4032 feet above the sea, is
always frozen hard for weeks and even months together during the
winter, and snow frequently lingers there. The spider, therefore,
which endures these conditions is scarcely likely to be of the
same species as any one of those inhabiting the lower country. The
trap-door spiders of these spurs of the Maritime Alps, are probably
of distinct species from those of the plains, but they are absolutely
unknown at present.
Then the males of several species, as, for example, those of _Nemesia
Simoni_, _N. suffusa_, _N. congener_, and _N. Moggridgii_, have yet
to be discovered; while of the habits of the males in general we know
little or nothing.
Indeed, there is no one species with the habits of which we can
say we are thoroughly acquainted, and we must admit that up to the
present time these ingenious little architects have been at least as
successful in concealing themselves from the intrusion of naturalists
as from the attacks of their proper enemies.