Lady Parker has also told me of some black trap-door spiders which were so common about Paramatta, near Sydney, in Australia, that scarcely any one paid attention to them, and which might habitually be seen out on the garden paths in the daytime near their holes, to which they would run in all haste when alarmed. The eye of the passer-by was attracted by the open doors, which were about the size of a sixpence, and fall over backwards when the spider makes her exit, but when closed, on her return, they fit so neatly that it is extremely difficult to detect them. It will, perhaps, have been observed that I have throughout spoken of the female spider only, scarcely any allusion having been made to the male. The truth is that, though I have carefully searched for them, I have never been able to secure more than a single male spider.[77] During the winter, spring, and late autumn (October) the female appears to live solitary, in the daytime at least, and the male probably hides in the crevices of old walls and in similar places. I have diligently turned over piles of stone, greatly to the annoyance of many little scorpions, but have never secured, or even seen, another male spider. This is the more to be regretted as the species of trap-door spider are much better characterized in the male than in the female sex, the bulb-like enlargement which is found at the end of the palpi in the former taking on a great variety of forms, each of which is distinctive. [Footnote 77: Three days before sending this MS. to print, and long after the plates had been completed, I captured on Oct. 23rd one male of _Nemesia Eleanora_. He lay crouched in a crevice in a mossy bank, and had, perhaps, been driven out of some deeper hiding-place by the heavy rains.] M. de Walckenaer[78] says:--"C'est toujours pendant la nuit que ces aranéides travaillent à leurs habitations et courent après leur proie. C'est en Août que la Mygale maçonne (_Nemesia_--or _Mygale_--_cæmentaria_) atteint toute sa grosseur.... En Septembre elle devient mère et méchante en même temps ... les mouches, les moucherons, les petits vers lui servent de pâture; elle les prend dans les filets qu'elle étend et attache sur les inégalités des terres voisines de sa demeure. Elle vit après la ponte en société avec son mâle. Dorthès a vu plusieurs fois, dans la même habitation, le mâle et la femelle avec une trentaine de petits." [Footnote 78: Les Aranéides de France, p. 4.] Any one, therefore, who has an opportunity of examining the nests during the early autumn, might perhaps, discover the happy families spoken of by M. Dorthès, but which it has never been my good fortune to see. It is not known positively whether the male spider ever assists in the construction of the nest, but, as we know that the female is able to make it without his aid, there seems no reason to suppose that he does.