Supplement to Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door SpidersMoggridge, John Traherne
Science
Supplement to Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders
Moggridge, John Traherne
Ants; Trap-door spiders
The figure-of-8 cell which she constructed at first, and subsequently
modified until it became the oblong enlargement of the tube alluded
to above, was totally unlike any form of trap-door spider's nest
known to me; but in its ultimate shape (which resembled that of the
glass part of a thermometer with an oblong bulb, save that it was
curved and not straight), I think we may trace some resemblance
to the silk tube which is made by _Atypus_, and of which a figure
is given at A, Plate XIII., p. 183; the mouth of the tube made
by my captive was, however, open. It is curious, also, when we
recall this resemblance, to note that Mr. Brown has recorded, in
his observations alluded to above (p. 185), that the tube of one
of the nests of _Atypus_, which he brought home in a collapsed
state, showed a somewhat similar tendency to become distended. For,
on opening the box in which they had been carried, he perceived a
movement throughout the tube as if it were becoming inflated, and
though this inflation appeared to subside shortly after, yet the
following morning the tube had recovered its cylindrical shape. I
am tempted to believe, though this is mere conjecture, that the box
in which these tubes were put contained moisture, and that their
apparent inflation was due to the same hygrometric action which, was
displayed in the tube of _N. Eleanora_. I regretted that I was unable
to continue my observations on this captive spider, as it would have
been interesting to know how long she would have lived contentedly
and in good health under the conditions described above, but I left
Mentone at the end of April, and was unable to take her alive with me
to England. When removed from her nest in the pot on April 12, she
appeared in perfect condition, and I placed her in a hole which I
made for her among some stones in a garden at the back of the house,
hoping to find her again on my return to Mentone in the autumn; this
hope was, however, not destined to be realized.
I shall, however, have occasion to speak again of the young captives
of this species (_N. Eleanora_), in the concluding remarks which will
follow these detailed accounts of the nests and their occupants, when
the behaviour of captive trap-door spiders generally will be treated
of.
The next type of trap-door nest is one to which I have found it
difficult to assign a descriptive name, and I am compelled for the
present to speak of it as the _Hyères double-door branched wafer_
nest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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