Mr. Blackwall, speaking of British spiders, says:--'Complicated as the processes are by which these symmetrical nets are produced, nevertheless young spiders, acting under the influence of instinctive impulse, display, even in their first attempts to fabricate them, as consummate skill as the most experienced individuals.' Again, Mr. F. Pollock[85] relates of the young of _Epeira aurelia_, which he observed in Madeira, that when seven weeks old they made a web the size of a penny, and that these nets have the same beautiful symmetry as those of the full-grown spider. And, speaking of trap-door spiders, Moggridge says,-- I cannot help thinking that these very small nests, built as they are by minute spiders probably not very long hatched from the egg, must rank among the most marvellous structures of this kind with which we are acquainted. That so young and weak a creature should be able to excavate a tube in the earth many times its own length, and know how to make a perfect miniature of the nest of its parents, seems to be a fact which has scarcely a parallel in nature.[86] Regarding the steps whereby the instinct of building trap-doors probably arose, Büchner quotes Moggridge thus:-- To show, lastly, how various are the transitional forms and gradations so important in deciding upon the gradual origin of the forms of nests, Moggridge also alludes to the similar buildings made by other genera of spiders. _Lycosa Narbonensis_, a spider of Southern France much resembling the Apuleian tarantula, and belonging to the family of the wolf spiders, makes cylindrical holes in the earth, about one inch wide and three or four inches deep, in a perpendicular direction; when they have attained this depth they run further horizontally, and end in a three cornered room, from one to two inches broad, the floor of which is covered with the remnants of dead insects. The whole nest is lined within with a thick silken material, and has at its opening--closed by no door--an above-ground chimney-shaped extension, made of leaves, needles, moss, wood, &c., woven together with spider threads. These chimneys show various differences in their manner of building, and are intended chiefly, according to Moggridge, to prevent the sand blown about by the violent sea-winds from penetrating into the nests. During winter the opening is wholly and continuously woven over, and it is very well possible, or probable, that the process of reopening such a warm covering in the spring, after this opening was three-quarters completed, and was large enough to let the spider pass out, may have long ago awaked in the brain of some species of spider the